


Ten Alive

by ICanStopAnytime



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Caryl, Drama, F/M, Other, Post-Series, Romance, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-04-03 21:24:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 81
Words: 164,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICanStopAnytime/pseuds/ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Daryl and Carol search for the surviving members of the destroyed Hilltop, following a single lead: Rick has left a note scrawled in red lipstick on the rear windshield of an abandoned car: "Ten Alive. Meet in Leesburg. Dead End Winery." Together, and with the help of some reluctant strangers, the survivors will have to rebuild. Ensemble cast. Caryl. Rosita/OC, Richonne, and more.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place post-series. I started writing this after Season 8, episode 9, so it assumes canon up to that point. After that, it may not coincide with the show.

The scavenged cans of food rest unevenly in the pack that rides Carol’s back.  A rounded edge digs through the canvass and into her side, and she lets go of Daryl’s waist with one hand to shift the load. He cranes his neck back slightly, but when her arm wraps around him again, his eyes return ahead, and he revs the motorcycle up the winding Virginia hill, leaning into the turns, letting the wind whip over them. 

Three days it took them to find these goods. Daryl would have been more productive hunting, perhaps, but Siddiq will make good use of the medicines, and Judith will appreciate the applesauce. It’s still early in the fall, and the Hilltop’s trees have not yet borne fruit.  

As they climb the hill, the bike straining against the incline, a gray tentacle of smoke weaves its way over the top and drifts towards them.  Then another…and another.

The thick, smoky smell grows stronger as they near the summit, and soon Carol is coughing against Daryl’s back.  The roar of the fire that licks the fields surrounding the Hilltop is louder than the roar of the motorcycle’s engine.  

[*]

The flames are eight miles behind them when Daryl loses the trail.  The survivors left in two pick-up trucks, he judges.  He paces the asphalt at the fork in the road, looks east, looks west, and then tells Carol, “North.” He says it with cool assurance, but it’s a lie. He doesn’t know which way they went. But maybe he’ll catch the trail again.

He returns to his motorcycle. Her arms slip around him like a familiar, favorite belt. He kicks the bike into a purr, and off they speed. They head north for another nine miles, away from the creeping fire, until the motorcycle finally putters to a stop, drained of its last ounce of gasoline.

Carol dismounts from behind him and scans the area with binoculars. She spies, in a ditch half a mile ahead, a rusty gray sedan. “We might have found gas. Or another ride.”

Daryl takes his pack from the back of the bike and slings it over his shoulders. His crossbow rests easy in one hand.  Carol walks beside him, her own pack heavy on her back, her palm resting on the hilt of her knife, her eyes darting back and forth in search of walkers.  She doesn’t expect a human threat, but she’s ready for one. The Saviors are long gone now, except the ones who surrendered and folded into the Hilltop and became productive members of the new community, and perhaps _they’re_ gone now, too.   

When they reach the sedan, they scurry on opposites sides of it, Carol with her handgun draw, Daryl with his bow leveled, scanning the windows for threats. There’s no life inside, but on the rear window, scrawled in thick red lipstick, is a note:

_Ten alive. Meet in Leesburg.  Dead End Winery. – Rick_

Daryl drops his pack on the trunk of the car. The buckle clatters as he tosses the flap open and seizes a map from inside.

“It would have been nice if he told us _which_ ten,” Carol says.

The paper crinkles as Daryl smooths out the map. He jabs a finger down on the black word _Leesburg_.  Then he holds two fingers an inch apart and measures the distance.  “’Bout 40 miles north west-ish. Dunno where the winery’s at, though.”

“We’ll go to the historic downtown. I’m sure there’s a wine trail map in every shop. Let’s see if we can get this car started.”

They can’t. And there’s no gas left in the tank.

“I guess we hike,” Carol says. She shields her eyes against the sun, which is beginning to set. “Or should we make camp?”

Daryl turns back in the direction of the fire, puts a hand to his brow, and studies the distant plume of smoke.  “’S hike. Put some more miles ‘tween us and that. Don’t wanna wake up the way they must of, flames all around.” 

How the watchmen failed to see it coming, and why they didn’t evacuate the Hilltop before more were killed, Daryl isn’t sure. He speculates the fire _started_ in the Hilltop at night, when nearly everyone was asleep, and then spread across the fields and to the forest. The flames were already dwindling among the fallen structures of the Hilltop, but the fields were licked with fire. And the walkers, which had been driven from the burning woods, were too numerous to allow them to survey the damage and identify the charred bodies that lay, like fallen logs, among the wreckage. 

Carol nods. She holsters her handgun, rests her hand on the butt, and begins walking, Daryl silent by her side, as the sun sinks slowly on the horizon.


	2. Chapter 2

Carol keeps looking at him like she wishes he would speak, but what is there to speak about? Another camp lost. Bodies unknown, left behind a wall of fire. And now he's had to abandon his motorcycle, too. It's a petty complaint, he knows, in the wake of everything they've lost, but it pains him to walk away from that bike.

He walks quickly, his steps determined, hurried. He can tell Carol's struggling to keep up, but she won't show it, won't ask him to slow down, so he eases off a little bit, slows his steps. She overtakes him by a few steps, realizes he's met her pace, and then settles comfortably in step beside him.

[*]

Two hours later, when the stars are out, it begins to rain, a mere drizzle at first, but the sky threatens a torrent. They luck upon an abandoned pick-up. The left rear tire is blown out, and strips of rubber lie strewn across the road, but the truck has a large bed and a cap over the bed.

"I like the accommodations," Carol says.

They escape inside, where they snap out their sleeping bags and sit side by side atop them. Rain patters on the roof above them in a rhythmic rat-a-tat-tat. It's fall, but it's warm inside this narrow bed. Carol sheds her jacket. Daryl leans forward, takes off the flannel button-down shirt that's draped over his wife beater, and balls it up to make a pillow behind his back. "'S on the menu, Chef?" he asks.

Carol shines her flashlight into her backpack. "Your choice. I can whip up and eclectic bean salad seasoned with a mixture of spices…" She'd snagged five jars of spices from a house on their scavenging trip, only three months expired, "…or we can have a fruit medley. Peaches and pears and mandarin oranges. But not the maraschino cherries. I'm saving those for Judith and Henry and Gracie." The little Savior foundling is crawling now.

"And H.G.," Daryl adds.

"Hershel Glenn is nowhere near old enough for solids yet," she explains. "So which do you want? Bean salad or fruit salad?"

"Oughtta save the fruit for the little uns. For Judith."

Carol can tell he's trying to say her name confidently, but his voice wavers. They both want to believe the kids are four of the  _ten alive_. If they aren't, then what are they surviving for?

"Except I have to sleep next to you tonight," she teases. "In an  _enclosed_  space."

"Fine. Fruit salad."

In the end, Carol doesn't make any kind of salad. She opens a single can of garbanzo beans and they eat straight from the can, one at a time, trading off. In the fuzzy glow of the flashlight, she sees a tan bean fly up. Daryl catches it in his mouth, like popcorn. She shakes her head. He does it again, but this time the bean falls to the bed, and Daryl rummages for it before popping it in his mouth.

"Eww."

"Five second rule."

"Stop tossing them and they won't get dirty."

[*]

When dinner is done, they don't talk about the Hilltop. They don't talk about Alexandria. They don't talk about the prison, or Hershel's farm, or the quarry. They don't speak of any of the worlds they tried, but failed, to build together. They speak instead of that  _old_  world, the one before the Collapse, the only one they can't blame themselves for losing.

"Butterfinger," Daryl says.

"Dots," Carol replies.

"Ain't a candy bar. You said what was yer favorite  _candy bar_."

"Well, favorite  _candy_  then."

He snorts. " _Dots_."

"They were delicious," she insists. "All sorts of flavors. And they were soft but not too soft. The perfect balance. Like you."

"Ain't any bit  _soft_."

Carol chuckles. "Your turn."

"What was yer favorite flavor of ice cream? And don't say sherbert, 'cause that ain't ice cream."

"Oh, God, what I wouldn't give for some fresh Georgia peach ice cream right now."

"Well, ya got a can of peaches. Reckon ya can make the ice cream when we get settled at the winery."

She catches his eyes in the misty glimmer of the flashlight, but she doesn't say what she's thinking – what he  _knows_  she's thinking – that they aren't going to settle at the winery, that they've never been able to settle anywhere, that the winery will be their sixth camp together, and that's if you don't count all the temporary camps between the quarry and the farm, between the farm and the prison, and between the prison and Alexandria. "We should get some shut eye," she says.

"I'll keep first watch."

He remains sitting up while Carol slides down into her sleeping bag, rolls on her side facing him, and settles her head on the thin pillow attached to her sleeping bag. Daryl clicks the flashlight off, so that only the faint starlight filters through the rain-streaked window at the back of the bed.

On her side beside him, Carol begins to cry, so softly that at first he doesn't hear it over the wind and the pattering rain. She does it quietly, like a mewling kitten almost.

He doesn't know what he's supposed to do about that, but he knows he has to do  _something_. So he slides his left hand, which is flat on the bed of the truck, slowly toward her, and he extends his pinky until it's lightly touching the soft flesh of the back of her own hand. He caresses her gently. She slides toward him, envelopes his lower arm with both of hers, and buries her face in the crook of his arm. He can feel the tears, hot and damp, against his bare flesh.

"Maggie and H.G. made it," he assures her, though he can't know that. "Judith and Rick and Michonne. Henry." She's grown very fond of that boy. "Gracie. Enid, too." Carol and the teenage girl share a trailer on the Hilltop, and Enid's become something of a daughter to her. Daryl camps in a tent behind their trailer. ( _Camped_  there, he reminds himself. It's all gone now.) "Aaron and Rosita. Toe - " He stops before mentioning her ex-boyfriend, not because he wishes Tobin any harm, but because he realizes he's already reached ten people. So he can't say Tobin. He can't say Tara either. He can't say Jesus. Or Morgan. Or Ezekiel, who rolled into the Hilltop camp along with nine survivors from the Kingdom. He can't say Father Gabriel or Siddiq. He can't say Dwight, who joined them when the war was over, or Sherry, whom Jesus found living on her own in house in the country during a supply run. He can't say Eugene, who was forgiven when they realized he'd made blanks of the Saviors' bullets. There are a dozen more people he can't mention. No wonder Carol's tears aren't softened by his assurance. In fact, he thinks they're falling harder now.

"Fuck," he mutters. "Ain't no good at this."

She pulls her head from his arm, lets go of his hand, and swipes the tears from her eyes. " _No one's_  good at this," she says quietly. "We weren't designed to handle all this. But we  _do_." She slides a hand over his arm to wipe away the tears there. "I just need to sleep. Thank you for keeping first watch."

Carol rolls on her side, away from him. He thinks, maybe, she cries herself to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Daryl awakes with a snort. His head hits the cap covering the bed of the pick-up and his foot strikes the crossbow lying at the end of the bed. Outside, he can hear the gnashing of a walker, and Carol is gone.

Heart pounding, he scurries for his crossbow, slides a bit on the slick sleeping bag, loads the weapon, and flings down the tail gate. When he rolls out, ready to fire, there's nothing to fire at. Three walkers lay strewn at Carol's feet, and she's cleaning her knife. "Morning, Sunshine," she says.

Daryl, proud of her quickness, ashamed of his unnecessary fear for her, and relieved by her safety, expresses all these feelings in a grunt. The rain has passed, but pools of water fill the potholes in the asphalt. He nods at the walker bodies. "Hell they come from?"

"I think they were in this truck originally."

"Yeah, what makes you think that?"

"Because this was in one of the pockets." She reaches in her jacket and dangles a pair of keys before his face. The key chain has a Dodge symbol, and the truck is a black Dodge Dakota. With a closed lip smile, he snatches them from her, jogs to the driver's side, and flings open the door. After climbing halfway in and shoving the keys in the ignition, he gives it a turn. The engine grinds and grinds, but finally catches. He turns it off. "Tank's half full," he says when he slides out. "Just need to get that tire changed."

Fortunately, there's a spare under a panel in the bed. Carol stands guard while Daryl grunts his way through the tire change, pumping the jack. She keeps looking at him. "Watch the road," he warns.

"Sorry. There's just something about a man changing a tire. Muscles bulging." She batts her eyelashes at him in mock exaggeration.

"Pffft…." he says, but he can't help but wonder if it really  _does_  turn her on. He takes a little longer with the tire change than he has to, grunts a little more than is necessary, and checks three times to see if her eyes are on him.

They aren't.

[*]

They take a long detour around Tyson's Corner mall because they know, from Jesus's last supply run, that the area is overrun with walkers. This will add an extra twenty miles to their trip, but it's better than battling a herd. They travel a two-lane highway up and down windy hills past the stunning red dogwoods and between the tall Virginia pines. Houses peek through the orange and yellow leaves of the sturdy oak trees. "Let's drive over to that development and scavenge," Carol says. "I don't think Jesus ever went this way. There might still be something."

"Ya said we shouldn't waste gas."

"I said we shouldn't waste gas to backtrack  _four_  miles for your motorcycle, which we don't even  _need_  now that we have the truck," Carol grumbles.

Daryl won that argument, though, and the bike is now latched to the top of the pick-up. When they went back for it, they could still see the thick cloud of distant smoke, despite the night's rain, but at least the fire didn't make it to the bike. If it weren't for the extra supplies that they left behind in the bike's top box, though, Daryl's not sure she would have agreed to go back for his baby.

"Turn here," Carol demands.

Daryl obeys, and soon enough, they're rolling through the narrow streets of the tiny development. A few stray walkers lurch toward the truck, and Carol rolls down the passenger's window, hangs out of it as if playing mailbox baseball, and stabs them one by one.

[*]

In the first house, they find a walker trapped beneath a fallen bookcase, nearly starved to death, its one free hand lamely grasping at the air. "Help me shift this bookcase so I can kill it," Carol says.

"Why?" Daryl asks "Ain't goin' nowhere."

A few months ago, Carol would have agreed. But after hearing Siddiq talk about trapped souls, it troubles her to leave them like that. They may not be  _her_  loved ones, but they were once  _someone's_. She won't risk her life to end their cursed existence, the way Carl Grimes so foolishly did, but when there's so little risk, she can't just walk away anymore. "Please? I'd like to kill it."

Daryl shrugs, shoulders his bow, rounds the bookcase on the side away from the grasping hand, and yanks the structure hard. It slides off just enough to give Carol a clear line, and she simply flicks her wrist and throws her knife into its brain. She spent much of this past peaceful summer on the Hilltop practicing with throwing knives, and she carries two small ones on her belt, along with her larger hunting knife. Carol reclaims the knife now, cleans it, and then snaps it to her frayed black belt.

They head for the kitchen pantry. Carol jumps back when Daryl opens the door and the mice scurry forth. Bags of rice, sugar, and flour lay on their sides, half spilled onto the floor. A final mouse scurries out of the sugar bag and disappears behind some dark green ceramic canisters.

Carol surveys the canned food. "Get that milk crate that was in the living room. The one holding the record albums."

Daryl returns with the orange plastic crate and holds it while Carol loads it with canned food – sauerkraut, artichoke, water chestnuts, cream of mushroom, beets – "All the shit that no one eats," Daryl says.

"Oh, just you wait and see what I can do with it. I'll whip up a fantastic dinner when we're all together again at the winery." She speaks optimistically, refusing to count the dead. To survive, she has to have something to move toward. When they're reunited with the ten alive, she wants to lay boxes of supplies at their feet, gifts to help ease their mourning. She may be the lucky one in all of this. The most important person in the world to  _her_  is still alive, right here, holding the plastic crate steady – keeping  _her_  steady.

[*]

In the garage of the second house, they find a red, 5-gallon gas can. Carol lifts it and shakes, but there's no welcome slosh. Meanwhile, Daryl prowls around the blue Porsche with black racing stripes that is parked carefully in the center of the garage, clear of the bicycles and lawnmower. He admires the car and thinks how jealous Merle would be if he had ever shown up in one of these in the old world. The doors are locked, so he takes an axe off the tool board on the garage wall and smashes the front passenger window. His hand wrapped in a bandana, he brushes the glass away and unlocks the door. When he pulls down the sun visor, a spare set of keys fall with a jangle to the floor.

"Hell yeah," he says. "Gonna travel in style now."

"That car's not big enough to haul supplies," Carol insists.

"Can drive it behind the truck." He struts around to the driver's side, eases in, and starts it. He pumps the accelerator to give it a little gas before it catches. The tank is one-quarter full.

"Boys and their toys," Carol says over the engine. She reaches in over his arms and turns the keys to the off position. The engine dies. "We're conserving gas and taking the truck.  _Only_  the truck. We should siphon off what's left in the tank into this." She holds up the red gas can.

"And if the truck breaks down?" Daryl tries.

"It won't. But if it does, we've got your motorcycle on top. The one you  _made us_  go back for. We shouldn't be running two vehicles at once and wasting gas. We might need it."

"Killjoy," Daryl mutters.

"You know I'm right."

"Fine. But if there's smokes in this glove compartment, they're mine." He leans over and jerks open the glove compartment, which is stuffed full of crumpled maps and other odds and ends. Half a dozen packets of condoms spill out.

Carol laughs as Daryl hastily scoops them up and shoves them in the pockets of his cargo pants.

"Got big plans for tonight?" she asks.

He flushes and says, "Figured Rick and 'Chonne might want 'em."

That's a lie. He took them in case Carol might want to use them. With  _him_. It's been ten long days since she's come on to him.

They've had sex eleven times now – not that he's counting. He never knows when she'll come to him. For a while he thought she only got horny on Saturdays, but twice she came to him on a Tuesday and another time on a Wednesday. The way it happens is she leaves the trailer she shares with Enid –  _shared_  with Enid - and comes into the tent he's set up behind it.

The first time she did it – the first time she came in and lay down next to him - he asked if she was cold. After all, they'd huddled for warmth before, on the road, in the winter. But then he realized what a dumb ass question that was, because it was August, so warm even at night that he was stripped down to his boxers.

When it happens, she stays the night afterward, sleeps curved against him, the soft, warm flesh of her naked body pressed against his. She always leaves early the next morning and sneaks back to her trailer, like a high school girl who doesn't want to get caught by her parents.

She never says anything when she does it, other than little words, like  _yes_  and  _please_  and  _there_ , like  _faster_  and  _slower_ ,  _harder_  and  _gentle_ ,  _Daryl_  and  _God_. The first time she did it, he figured she'd never come back, because he shot off as fast as a jack rabbit, just two thrusts into her. She had to guide his hand between her legs to finish herself off. They didn't talk about it after it happened, but for the next seven days, she treated him the same tender, teasing way she always did. And then the next Saturday night she  _did_  come back.

Ten more times she came back, and he got better each time, at least he  _thinks_  he did, because she made more noises each time, and she shuddered longer after each climax.

He doesn't know why she started doing it or what the hell any of it means, but he takes what she offers. He never goes to her, for fear that will jinx the whole thing and that it – whatever  _it_  is - will vanish like a mirage. He just waits for her to come to him, on her own time table, ready and willing.

Daryl thinks maybe he's her boyfriend now, but he's not sure. She hasn't  _told_  him he is. And he's not going to ask. If he learned one useful piece of wisdom from his brother Merle, it's this –  _don't look a gift horse in the mouth._

"C'mon," he mutters as he slides out of the car. "Let's siphon the gas."

"So I suppose you want me to suck," she teases, and he can feel the heat spreading all over his face.

"Stop."

She smiles, hands him the empty gas can, and draws her hunting knife to cut the garden hose that's lying, curled like a snake, on the work bench.


	4. Chapter 4

The next house has been cleared out and even the garage is empty.

In the fourth house, they find a bottle of Southern Comfort, 1.75 liters, more than half full. "I'm not touching that," Carol says.

"Aw, c'mon. Everyone's got a sick-on-Southern-Comfort story. Ya ain't the only one."

"Yeah, but I'm the only one who called my 11th grade history teacher and told him I wanted to have his babies."

"Well, would he of made a good baby daddy?"

"Probably."

Daryl sets the Southern Comfort in a cardboard box they snagged from the study. "Then you're having a shot tonight."

"Are you trying to get me drunk to take advantage of me?" she teases.

"Stop," Daryl says, but he wonders if that's a hint.  _Foreshadowing_ , as his 7th grade English teacher would have called it. Probably not. Carol's never come to him on the road before. Only in the tent on the Hilltop. He thinks, maybe, she doesn't feel safe enough to get naked on the road. There's no fence, no guard, no watchman, no one to keep a lookout while they….he flushes at the thought of her, naked and moving against him. "Should check the garage," he mutters and scurries out the adjoining kitchen door.

[*]

In the sixth house, while Daryl rummages through the medicine cabinet, Carol hits the pantry. She wonders if he's looking for more condoms.

The first time she came to him, taking the plunge on that hot August night, she feared rejection. Even so, she acted like she didn't. She behaved as if lifting that tent flap was no more a challenge to her than slaying a walker. And when he asked innocently if she was cold, she realized there was no way it would ever happen unless she lit up a neon sign for him.

So, that night, she took off her shirt, and while he sat, frozen and staring, she took off her bra, too. Then she took his strong, callused hand, and she placed it gently on her bare breast. Once he got over the initial shock of the undeniable message, he was eager. Eager…and then embarrassed by his early finish.

It got better after that.  _Much_  better. Unlike Ed, Daryl pays attention to what she wants, like a musician following the cues of a conductor. The result is an ever-improving symphony. He never initiates sex, but he never says no when she does. In a way, the fact gives her a rush of power, a comfortable sense of control. She never has to worry about wanting it, about being in the mood; she never has to say no and feel that old, reflexive fear that lingers after years of living with a man who would not take no for an answer.

After two decades with an abusive husband, Carol's not sure she's capable of a  _normal_  relationship, one like Glenn and Maggie had, or like Rick and Michonne have – assuming Michonne is still alive. She doesn't think Daryl is capable either. So she's not expecting a typical relationship, but, at the same time…she wants Daryl to  _say_  he wants her. So, for the past ten days, she's been conducting a silent experiment. Carol has been waiting to see how long it will take Daryl to come to her if she doesn't come to him.

She knows he likes the sex. She can tell by the dopey grin on his face every time she lifts the flap of his tent late at night, by the husky moans he makes, by the way her name falls in smoky tones from his lips when he's close. And she knows he cares about her. She can tell by the familiar, casual way he drapes his arm around her shoulders from time to time, by the wildflowers he brings her in dusty beer bottles he's found by the creek, by the way he gives her the first and best cuts of the meat he kills in the woods, and by the way he always walks on the dangerous side of the road, between her and anything that might emerge.

She knows he cares, and she knows he desires her, but she wants him to  ** _say_**  it.

[*]

When they leave the housing development, they have a shoebox full of medicines, two milk crates of canned food, and two more bottles of liquor – vodka and gin – to complement the Southern Comfort. They also have a more detailed map of Virginia, but it still doesn't have the wineries listed.

Carol studies that map now as Daryl drives. She's trying not to think about what they've lost – an entire farm, the well, the solar panels that generated at least a few hours of electricity each week, the outhouses, and, of course, the worst truth of all - over three dozen people. All the survivors rolled into the Hilltop after the War – Alexandria and the Kingdom both, as well as the surrendered Saviors, who had to earn their place in time.

"You a'ight?" Daryl's voice is worried. There must be a mist in her eyes.

"Ten alive," she says quietly and folds the map slowly before looking straight through the windshield at the road ahead. "Which ten, do you think?"

"Dunno. But one of 'ems Little Ass Kicker," he says with almost angry certainty. Of course, Judith's not quite so little anymore. She's twenty months old and almost three feet tall, and she stumble-runs wherever she goes. Her vocabulary consists of over forty words, and she makes lots of two-word sentences. Her longest sentence ever, consisting of six words, was a command made to Daryl just last week:  _Unca D hugs Ju-Ju wight now._  Unca D, of course, complied.

"Why Dead End Winery?" Carol asks.

"Wineries're remote." Daryl scratches the back of his head and returns his hand to the steering wheel. "Not likely a lot of walkers. Have fields to farm in. Woods nearby for huntin'."

"And I suppose there would be a main house and a tasting room. Maybe even a servant's quarters. There might already be outhouses in place for the field workers or for festivals, so we'd have some sanitation. There could even be a well. It's not a bad plan, to seek out a winery, but why, specifically,  _Dead End_  Winery? Did they pick it out of a phonebook?"

Daryl shifts uncomfortably in the driver's seat.

"What?" she asks.

"Caitlyn. That woman from the Kingdom? One that annoys you?"

"She annoys you, too," Carol says. Caitlyn is – or was - a busty, chatty, twenty-eight year old who has ideas about everything, but very little interest in putting those ideas into any kind of practice that requires hard work. She's always flashing her cleavage and trying to get men, Daryl included, to do things for her.

"Said something 'bout her grandparents had a winery at a dead end road in Leesburg. That she was tryin' to get to it when she found the Kingdom."

Carol understands why he shifted now. If they're going to Caitlyn's grandparents' winery, that might mean that Caitlyn suggested it. Which might mean that Caitlyn is one of the  _ten alive_. Which might mean that Carol has to cross another name off her list of hoped-for survivors. It's not that she wishes Caitlyn dead, of course, but she wishes others alive more. Thinking about it is maddening. It's like trying to pick your favorite brother or sister, your favorite nephew or niece. She doesn't  _want_  to think about it. She doesn't want to think about it so much that she's relieved when they round a bend in the highway and encounter a herd of walkers.


	5. Chapter 5

The pick-up jerks to a stop. Daryl slams it into reverse, throws his arm around the back of Carol's seat to get a better look through the rear window, and slams the accelerator until they've backed up all the way to the last fork in the road. "Navigate," he demands.

Carol studies the map as the walkers lurch through abandoned cars in their direction. She's got maybe six minutes to make a decision. She makes it in three. "Left, down this road a few miles." He turns as she continues, "then we'll pick another road, and eventually we'll get to Route 15, come up toward Leesburg from the south."

Soon they encounter another road blockage – smaller this time – six crashed and abandoned cars and about a dozen walkers. Daryl does not retreat. He throws the truck into four-wheel-drive and then guns it up a grassy embankment. Above, on the roof, the rope-secured motorcycle scrapes back and forth. Carol readies her handgun, but there's no need for it. A few walkers thump and thud against the front passenger's side headlight and roll back into the road. The creatures stagger after the truck but can't keep up. He drives on the embankment for almost half a mile before finding clear spot on the road again, says, "Hold on," and then rolls the truck on down back to the road, where it skids before he rights it and moves on.

"Just like Disney World," Carol says.

"Ya ever been to Disney World?"

"No. Of course not. You think Ed would have sprung to take Sophia to Disney World?"

"Mean when  _you_  was a kid."

"No. I went to Dollywood once though. With my grandparents."

"'S yer favorite ride there?"

Daryl's probably trying to take her mind off their losses by becoming chatty, and it's working, because it's so rare that he gets chatty. "Back then Dollywood wasn't very big," she answers. "They just had a carousel and the steam train and the shops, but the train was like a show. We got attacked by train robbers. And by Indians. Not to mention Union soldiers. It was all very exciting…back then. Before I knew what it was like to  _really_  be attacked."

"Sorry. Wasn't tryin' to remind ya."

"I know," she replies. "You ever go to an amusement park?"

"Nah. Worked at a carnival once. Ran one of the games."

"Which one?"

"One ya throw the ball through the hoop and win the giant teddy bear."

"Basketball?"

"Yeah, 'cept," he leans a little toward her and lowers his voice, "wanna know the secret?"

"Do I ever," she teases.

He rights himself again. "Hoop's shaped funny. Ball cain't go through. Ain't no one can win."

"I always suspected."

"Didn't get paid by the hour. Got ten percent of the booth's cut. I wasn't much good at gettin' people to come over to my booth, though."

"Not a salesman?" she asks with a smile.

"Guess not. Think I scared some kids away."

Carol laughs, and Daryl looks pleased to have made her laugh.

"You ever win a teddy bear for your girl?" she asks. He's never mentioned any woman from his past, and she's curious. She's pretty sure he's no virgin, but she wonders if he's ever had more than a one-night stand. "Maybe at the carnival shooting range?"

"Told ya the games are all rigged."

That's not much of an answer. "Well, you'll have to win me one sometime. A great big blue teddy bear."

He glances at her, his brow creased like he's trying to solve a puzzle, and then he returns his eyes to the road.

**[*]**

They stop to scavenge a tiny strip mall. There's only one lonely walker in the parking lot. Carol lets Daryl take care of it. He hasn't shot that bow in a day. The strip mall has an auto shop, a dry cleaner, a drug store, a Tae Kwon Do school, and a donut shop.

The donut shop looks like perhaps it was empty before the collapse of the world. The auto supply store is mostly cleared out, though they do manage to grab a few quarts of oil, some coolant, and windshield wiper fluid. They also find five portable battery jump-start packs. "Surprised these got left behind," Carol said. When they press the battery charge buttons, there's barely any charge left – one green bar and two red ones on each - not enough to jump start a car, probably, but enough juice to plug in some small appliances and use them for a while. After they load up the battery packs, they walk over to the drug store.

The windows have been broken, and the drug store has been completely cleaned out of anything edible and most of the medicines, but Carol fills a cardboard box with an assortment of razor blades, soap, and feminine products. She has just smashed a locked glass case and is shoveling three pregnancy tests into her box when she spies Daryl's boots, frozen in place. She looks up to see that his eyes are wide and his face paled.

"They aren't for me," she reassures him. "Michonne asked me to pick a few up while we were on our supply run, but I didn't see any earlier." He still looks alarmed, and so she adds, "I had my period last week."

Daryl walks on without a word. He vanishes into the toy aisle.

[*]

Carol is shoving the box full of drug store goodies into the bed of the truck when she hears Daryl's footsteps. She knows a man's gait from a walker's, but she also knows Daryl's gait from any other man's. She lifts the tail gate, clicks it into place, and shuts the hatch before turning. He's holding a little, dusty blue teddy bear, about 8-inches tall. He thrusts it out to her. "Here. Ain't big. Sorry."

Despite the gruffness of his gesture, Carol feels a warm rush of affection for him. She takes the bear. "Did you win it?"

He seems to consider her question carefully, as if he's trying to pass a test. "Had to fight a spider for it."

She laughs, steps forward, and gives him a little kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. I'll treasure it." She's not being sarcastic. This may be as close an admission as she ever gets that Daryl wants her to be his girlfriend.

Carol takes the bear and brings it into the passenger side of the truck with her. It's then she notices it has a suction cup on its little blue ass. She adheres the bear to the dashboard and stretches out her legs while Daryl starts the truck.

The bear bops forward and back as Daryl drives over the curb and back onto the road. They drive in silence down the road for about two miles. Daryl is, to her surprise, the first to speak. "'Chonne asked ya to get those tests?"

"Yes."

"So…that mean there might be  _eleven_  alive?"

"Maybe," Carol says softly. "There just may be."


	6. Chapter 6

"Let's check that out." Carol points through her passenger's side window across the street to a stand-alone, one-story brick and glass building with a gravel parking lot. In bulbous, colorful, graffiti-like letters, a sign across the top of the door reads –  _Time Machine Arcade_.

"Why?" Even as Daryl questions her, he pulls into the parking lot.

"The prize counter might have candy," she says.

"Shouldn't we keep movin'?" he asks as he puts the truck in park. "Get to that winery?"

"I want to scavenge some more."

"Been scavengin' all day."

"They might have vending machines," she insists.

He shrugs and turns off the truck. He gets the impression showing up at the winery with a shitload of loot is important to her, but he has no idea why. They can always scavenge later.

Carol tries the front door to the arcade, but it's locked. Daryl peers through the tinted windows and sees a couple dozen machines, but no movement. If there's anything worthwhile in there, it hasn't been looted. He bangs with his fist on the windows several times, just in case. They wait for walkers. Nothing gathers from inside.

Carol grabs a loose brick from the cracked walkway. The windows aren't easy to bust. She can't do it, but Daryl waits for her to give up before he takes over. He knows better than to try to do something for her when she's got a mind to do it herself.

Once she hands him the brick, he pounds it against the window several times before a crack begins to emerge, but once it does, the next blow explodes the glass. Daryl ducks as the pieces rain down on him.

"You okay?" Carol asks.

"Mhmhm." He dusts the glass from the leather vest and then sucks the tip of a cut finger. It hurts, but he's trying to play it cool.

They cautiously make their way through the shattered opening in the glass and then sweep up and down the aisles between the machines in one last check for walkers. One clear stream of sunbeams floods through the hole they made in the glass and illuminates the center of the room, but otherwise the arcade is filled with hazy sunlight filtered through the tinted windows.

The place is empty. It's not a large arcade, and most of the games are from the 90s, with a few from as far back as the 80s. "They weren't kidding about the time machine part," Carol says.

There are no ticket-dispensing games and no prize counter, but there is a soda machine and a candy machine, just as Carol predicted, and they're mostly full.

"Hard to bust into," Daryl says as Carol surveys the soda machine. He can't see one without thinking of Denise, and suddenly he wonders if Tara is one of the ten alive, if he wants her to be, and who he might trade in her place. It's an awful thought, picking favorites.

"How do we open them?" Carol asks.

"Gonna get the tools from the truck." He's learned to go in through the back of the machines.

When he returns with the tool box, Carol helps him drag the machines down onto their faces. She explores the arcade while he unscrews and cuts and pries at the metal on the back of the machine. His curses fill the air, but, eventually, he succeeds. "Any boxes?" he calls to Carol, who is looking underneath the cash register. She brings over a large cardboard box, in which she's already placed three unopened bottles of water, a box of tissues, and a bottle of hand sanitizer she found under the counter. Daryl starts loading the sodas into it, and she returns with another box.

While he's packing up, Carol continues to roam. Every now and then, Daryl glances up from his work to judge where she is, a safety check. He knows she can take care of herself, but it's a habit he can't break. She's studying some red switch on the wall now, and she reaches out and pushes a lever up.

The games whir and blip and bleep and light up. The cash register drawer pops open with a cling. Guns N' Roses blares from the loud speaker, singing,

_Welcome to the jungle, we take it day by day.  
If you want it, you're gonna bleed, but it's the price to pay…_

The overhead lights buzz, flicker, and then glow.

Carol looks in wonder at all the flashing machines. "I didn't think that emergency power switch would work. They must have had a battery back-up!"

Daryl, grinning, takes two quarters from the candy machine and stands. He walks over to a hunting game, feeds in the two quarters, pulls out the plastic orange crossbow, and begins shooting deer and other animals. He's just about to take down a ten-point buck when the machines whine and everything suddenly goes dark. He turns to see that Carol has flipped the switch back to off. "The hell?" he asks. "Almost beat my old record."

"You don't strike me as the kind of guy who used to play video games."

" _Every_  kind of guy used to play video games."

"Well, we should get those five portable battery packs from the truck and fully charge them all. Which means we should unplug all these machines before switching the power back on so they don't drain the back-up source. Who knows how long it's meant to last."

"Killjoy," Daryl mutters, but he goes out to the truck and comes back with the battery packs. He plugs them into the outlets as Carol unplugs all the machines. When she flips the switch again, none of the games light up, but the overhead lights flicker and buzz, and the music blares back on:

_Jungle, welcome to the jungle_ _  
Watch it bring you to your shun n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n knees, knees_

"I think this song is on repeat." Carol finds the stereo source just as Axl Rose sings,

_Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day.  
_ _You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play._

Carol clicks the off button. She ejects the disk and breaks it in half over her knee.

"Hell was that for?" Daryl asks.

"I don't like the message."

Maybe it hits a little too close to home, Daryl thinks.

"Find the light switch and turn it off, will you?" she asks.

When the overhead lights are off and the arcade is a fog of filtered sunlight again, Carol walks over to the air hockey table, three feet from where he's now standing. She leans back against it, somewhat suggestively, her hands flat down on the table behind herself, a posture that makes her chest stand out. The white t-shirt under her open jacket pulls tightly across her breasts, and Daryl tries not to stare straight at them. "So…" she asks, her lips flirtatiously pouty, the way they sometimes are when she's teasing him, "what are we going to do to kill time while these battery packs are charging?"

Daryl chews on his bottom lip and wonders if she's joking or if…maybe she really wants him to fuck her right there on that air hockey table?  _Nah._  That doesn't sound like Carol. But…the way she's standing… _shit_. Maybe she  _does_. But she hasn't  _said_  that's what she wants.

"Well?" she asks. "What should we do with all this time?"

Daryl swallows. "We could…uh…" He struggles to form words. "Ya…uh…wanna play air hockey?"

Carol, looking frustrated, pushes off the table and closes her jacket over her chest by buttoning the middle button. But then she laughs and says, "Sure. Let's play air hockey. Plug the machine back in."

[*]

Sometimes Daryl can be as a dense as a load of bricks, Carol thinks as he crawls back from beneath the table where he's plugged the machine into a floor outlet. Either that or he's not as attracted to her as she imagines. But she's not buying that, not based on how eager he is when they  _do_  have sex, not based on the way his eyes were fixed on her chest a moment ago. She could have been more blunt, and she'd probably be sitting on this air hockey table right now, with her legs wrapped around him and his tongue down her throat. But it's  _his turn_  to initiate.

"Gonna get us some quarters," he says and heads to the candy machine.

Carol hasn't played air hockey since a month before the collapse of the world, when there was a table at the pizza joint where she took Sophia for her twelfth birthday. Ed ordered an entire pitcher of beer and started getting a little too drunk, so Carol steered Sophia away from the table where he was arguing with the game on the television on the wall across from the booth. She was protecting her little girl, as best as she knew how back then. She had no idea there would one day be worse monsters than Ed in their world.

Daryl returns, loads three quarters into the silver coin tray, and slams it into the machine. The air hockey table begins to buzz, and the puck shoots out of her slot. Carol picks it up. She pushes down the past and focuses on the present. "You're going down," she tells Daryl.


	7. Chapter 7

The puck clacks into Carol's goal and shoots out the slot.

"Boo-yah!" Daryl shouts.

He hasn't had this much fun since he was ten, and his Uncle Joey came down from Tennessee for the funeral of his sister (Daryl's mother). While Daryl's father and Merle both got fall-down drunk at the wake, Uncle Joey took Daryl all the way to town for the local ice cream joint with the ten arcade games. He bought Daryl not one, not two, but  _three_  scoops of ice cream and then gave him a fistful of quarters for the games. When they left, Uncle Joey slipped a sheet of paper into Daryl's hand and said,  _That's my phone number. Just call if you need anything._  But when Daryl did call, six months later, from a payphone, when Merle was back in juvie, and the water and the heat were turned off, some woman answered and said,  _That asshole don't live here no more_. That was all the information Daryl could get out of her.

Carol takes out the puck and puts it back on the table. "How long does the game last?"

"First person to seven wins. Ain't you played this before?" She's doing a little too well if this is her first time. She's got five points to his six.

"My father didn't allow me to hang out in arcades. He was sure there would be seedy boys trying to pick me up." She gives him a wink. It's disarming, that wink, and he doesn't notice her slam the striker forward. There's a loud crack, and, before he can react, the puck is in his goal.

"No fair," he says. "'S cheating."

"You snooze, you lose."

He scowls and takes the puck out of the slot and puts it back on the table. They slam that thing back and forth for a good two minutes, until Daryl slams it so hard it flies off the table. Carol snorts and then goes to recover it, which is when Daryl sees the walker trying to crawl its way through the broken window. It's probably been drawn out of the woods across the street by the music that was blaring earlier. He struts over to the counter, seizes the bow he left on top, aims, and fires between two rows of video games. When the arrow thumps into the creature's head, the puck clatters into his goal.

"Hey!" he shouts. "I wasn't even at the table."

"You snooze, you lose," Carol tells him again. "Seven points. I win."

The table stops buzzing and the puck is not returned.

"Skeeball next?" Carol asks. "I'm great at skeeball."

"Thought you wasn't allowed at arcades."

"I  _wasn't_  allowed," she says. "That doesn't mean I didn't  _go_."

Daryl's lips twitch. "Little rebel, huh?" He wonders if Carol was a bit of naughty thing, before she met Ed.

Carol shrugs coquettishly. "You better go check for more walkers."

While Daryl goes to recover his arrow and take a peek out front, Carol unplugs the air hockey table and gets more change from the cash register.

"Just the one," Daryl tells her when he finds her feeding quarters into two of the three skeeball machines. "Quiet out there." The balls roll out with a clatter. She takes a brown, wooden ball in one hand, swings back, and rolls it straight up into the 50.

"Pfft," Daryl says. "Why don't ya go for the hundred?" Determined to impress her, he takes a skee ball from his game and slams it up the ramp. It rolls up so hard and fast that it bangs against the plastic roof covering the goals and then hops down over the plastic rings until it plummets straight into the gutter.

"That's why," Carol replies with a smirk. She rolls another ball up the ramp and scores a forty.

Daryl rolls his more gingerly this time, and it lands in the ten.

"If you let me cut those bangs again," she tells him, "you could see the goals better."

Daryl grunts.

"Seriously, they're getting long again. I'm taking a pair of scissors to them in your sleep." Carol rolls her ball gently up the ramp, and it lands in the fifty.

Daryl adjusts his stance, like he's serious now, and rolls a twenty.

"Loser cooks dinner," Carol says.

"Little early for dinner."

Carol rolls a forty. "But we haven't had lunch."

As if in agreement, Daryl's stomach growls. He rolls a ten.

Carol gets a twenty next. Daryl doesn't roll another ball. He just watches her get another twenty, then a fifty, then a forty.

"Fuck this." Daryl seizes his last three balls and leaps up onto the ramp. He thumps up it three steps, leaving muddy boot prints on the red surface, and then shoves the balls one by one straight into the hundred.

"That's cheating," Carol insists through her laughter.

"Ya snooze, ya lose." He thunders back down and jumps off. "What's for dinner, Chef?"

[*]

They've found two chairs and made the air hockey table their dinner table. "Best beet and sauerkraut salad I ever had," Daryl tells her. Carol doesn't think he's being sarcastic. He always compliments her cooking, even if it just involves mixing things together and throwing in a few spices. Maybe her mama was right. Maybe the way to a man's heart really  _is_  through his stomach.

They brush their teeth afterward, using a little water from their canteens, and spitting into the arcade's bathroom sinks. Daryl checks outside again for walkers, but there's no movement in the parking lot or beyond. The packs are still charging, so they play another game of air hockey, and this time Daryl wins. Then Carol plugs in Ms. Pac-Man to show him how talented she is. "I used to play this one all the time," she tells him after she clears yet another board.

"In the arcades ya weren't allowed to go to?"

"At the roller skating rink." She eats a pellet and chases the ghosts. "Which I  _also_  wasn't allowed to go to. But I pretended to be studying at my friend's house, and she and I went there to pick up boys."

"Yeah?" asks Daryl, smirking and leaning one arm against the side of the machine as she jerks the joystick left and right, up and down. "How many you pick up?"

"Just one. But he was an  _older_  boy."

"How  _much_  older?" Daryl asks.

It makes her chuckle, the protective tone in his voice, over something that happened more than thirty years ago. "I was a freshman and he was a junior. We dated for almost two years. He was my high school sweetheart." It was a shame that boy went away to college and she didn't, because he treated her well enough. Then again, Ed didn't treat her badly at first. "How about you?" Maybe she'll finally get an answer about his past.

"'Bout me what?"

"Did you have a high school sweetheart?"

"Dropped out at 15." Again, not an answer. "Paid the Brain to take my GED for me. Got my fake diploma. Got a job. Three jobs, really."

"The Brain?" When she glances away from the game, she gets devoured by a ghost.

"This scrawny guy at my school. Made a shitload of money sellin' papers and makin' fake IDs and takin' tests."

Carol's Ms. Pac-Man is revived, and she jerks the stick a hard left and then right so she can eat the last dot on the screen. High-pitched music emits from the machine as the Act 3 Intermission comes on. The stork flies over and drops a bundled baby down atop the two pac-men.

"How come they go straight from the chase to the baby?" Daryl asks. "How come they ain't gettin' married? Shouldn't Act 3 be the weddin'?"

"My aren't  _you_  traditional? I had no idea."

He smirks at her. "Bad influence on kids, these video games. No wonder yer daddy didn't let you go to the arcade. Didn't want ya to come home knocked up."

She laughs, and when she catches his eyes, they're twinkling, as if maybe her happiness makes  _him_  happy.

"What's Act IV?" he asks. "The paternity test?"

Carol snorts. Is he actually trying to  _flirt_  with her by making her laugh? She glances away from the screen and sees his rare smile. The game makes a  _bloop bloop bloop_  sound as her Ms. Pac-Man expires beneath the onslaught of a pink ghost. "I don't think there is an Act IV," she answers as she releases the joystick. "At least, I've never made it to Act IV. And I  _still_  haven't. Thanks to you, mister." She bumps him playfully with her shoulder so he's pushed away from the machine. Then she slides a foot under the cord and kicks it up to unplug it. "Race you," she says.

He looks confused. "Where?"

She chuckles and points to the side by side Mario Kart machines. They plug in the machines, get some more coins, and pick their cars. Carol's just about to overtake him in the first race when the power dies and the machines go suddenly dead.

"Good thing we didn't keep  _all_  the machines plugged in," she mutters.

Fortunately, when they check the battery packs, they all have three green bars – fully charged. "Guess it's time to go," Daryl says.

"I don't know," Carol replies. "The sun is going to set soon." She's had fun with him today. For a while, she forgot how bleak and ugly the world was.

Daryl's brow furrows. "So? That winery ain't far."

Carol's not in a hurry to make it to the winery, because once they do, they'll know who's alive and who isn't. Her grief will morph from the general to the specific. "I'm tired."

"Can sleep in the truck. I'm drivin'."

If they get to that winery, and Michonne and the hope that's possibly within her is gone…if little Judith is gone, if Enid or Henry or Gracie is gone….if H.G., that precious newborn that is the last remnant of Glenn, is gone…Carol's not sure she'll be able to accept those truths. Not after Sophia, after Patrick, after Lizzie and Mika, after Carl, after so much youth, chewed up and spit out by this world. "We've got shelter here," she says. "We've only seen one walker all day." Her voice falters as she tries to control her emotions. "I just think maybe we should make camp for the night. Finish the journey in the morning."

Daryl studies her carefully. She's afraid he'll keep pressing, that he'll insist on driving on, but he doesn't. "A'ight," he says gently.

[*]

Daryl unlocks the door from the inside and goes out to move the truck onto the walkway in front of the broken glass window. Then they drag two arcade games to cover the opening from the inside, so the hole is double-blocked. The place feels secure, and Daryl thinks they should both be able to sleep tonight.

Because it's still too early for bed, though, they sit on the hood of the pick-up, eat stale candy from the candy machine, and watch the sun set in red and orange brush strokes over the tops of the dark green pines.

"Romantic, huh?" Carol asks and bumps his shoulder with hers.

"Stop," he says. He hates her teasing because he never has any idea how he's supposed to respond. But he loves it, too, because her blue eyes are so damn pretty when they twinkle. That twinkle makes her look happy, young, carefree.

"Is the Butterfinger as good as you remember?" Carol asks.

"Better." Daryl bites down hard on the candy bar. He rips and tears at it before a chunk comes off.

She laughs. "Well, Sour Patch Kids are no Dots, but…." She pops another one in her mouth and sucks like it's a hard candy, because, at this point, it practically is.

[*]

The sun has set. Darkness blankets the pot-marked street and the woods beyond. The moon is obscured by wolf-gray clouds. Their candy wrappers have been tossed carelessly on the gravel parking lot, left to drift with the rest of this decaying world's debris.

The day is done, and neither knows what the morning will bring. Carol needs comfort tonight, and she can't play this game anymore. She can't wait for Daryl to come to her. "Have sex with me," she says, and takes his hand and tugs him down from the hood of the truck.

He ducks his head as if that can hide his dopey smile, and then he follows her inside. As he locks the front door behind them, he says, "Ya know, I'm 'zactly the kind of guy yer daddy didn't want ya to meet in arcades."

When he turns from the door, she seizes him by the belt buckle and yanks him against herself. "I  _know_."


	8. Chapter 8

Daryl, his back pressed against the cotton fabric of the unzipped sleeping bag that lines the arcade floor, struggles to catch his breath. His chest rises and falls beneath Carol's head. Sex always seems to take more out of him than it does out of her. He doesn't understand how she recovers so damn fast.

Carol didn't want be fucked on the hockey table after all, because when he backed her against it, she asked him to unroll the sleeping bag. And despite all those hints of being a naughty girl, in the end, she kept asking for "slow" and "gentle." That was fine by him. He doesn't much care  _how_  they have sex as a long as they have it. He gave her what she wanted, he thinks, because she whimpered and sighed the whole time, cried "please" and "more," and moaned so beautifully toward the end. Now she's settled in like a kitten, soft and sleepy and curled all around him, practically purring.

The arcade is black as tar with the power drained and the shattered window blocked. After a few minutes of cuddling, Carol pulls away and complains, "It's too dark."

"Hold on." Daryl feels around in the darkness for his cargo pants. He reaches into one of the deep pockets, brushes aside the condom packets – he's down to five now - and pulls out the packet of St. Patrick's Day glow sticks he snagged from the clearance section of the toy aisle at the drug store. He tears it open with his teeth, takes out a stick, cracks it, and shakes. It glows yellow-green. He cracks another, which is yellow-white with little green shamrocks inside. He cracks and shakes up a third and fourth and hands the glowing sticks to her. Carol lays them out around the sleeping bag – two at her side and two at their heads.

"Romantic, huh?" he asks. He tries to ask it flippantly, the same way she did when they were watching the sunset, but it doesn't come out flippantly. It comes out almost desperate, as if he's begging for her approval. He doesn't like the way it sounds, and he's afraid she'll laugh at him.

She doesn't. "Yes. It's lovely, like candles on a night stand. Thank you for thinking of it."

Relieved, and pleased by her appreciation, he scrambles to come up with another gallant move. "Ya cold?" She might be. Now that the sun has set, and they're in a big, open area, and the heat of sex has begun to fade, he can feel the crisp of the autumn air himself.

In the green glow of the sticks, she nods.

Daryl grabs the second sleeping bag – the one they aren't lying on - unzips it, and drapes it over them like a heavy comforter. Carol turns on her side, away from him. She does this every time she comes to him in the tent, and it means, he knows, that she wants him to spoon against her while she falls asleep. So he does.

Her soft, naked flesh nestles back against his. As she drifts off to sleep, it occurs to him that she can't sneak back to her trailer tomorrow morning, before the first hint of sunlight, the way she always does. She'll awake with him, beside him, and be with him all morning long.

Daryl lays awake for another hour, worrying about how he's supposed to act in the morning, wondering if he's supposed to get up early and fix her breakfast.

[*]

Something hits Daryl's chest hard. His eyes shoot open, and in the misty morning light, he sees it's Carol's hand. "The hell?"

"Someone's trying to steal the truck."

He hears it now, too, the clicking of the engine, as if someone is trying – but not succeeding - to wire it.

Carol begins to dress hastily, but Daryl doesn't bother. He seizes his crossbow and runs naked to the front door, unlocks it with a rough flick of his wrist, and bursts outside. The move is brash and foolish, but damned if he's going to let anyone steal the loot they've gathered, the loot that is clearly so important to Carol to bring to the survivors.

Lucky for him, there's only one man in the parking lot, and he's in a vulnerable position, boots on the gravel, bent beneath the steering wheel of the truck. There's something on his back, a pack with…tiny arms and legs? The hell?

Daryl levels his crossbow. "Hands up!" he yells.

The man slips from beneath the wheel, hands up in the air, and stands straight, his back to Daryl. That's when Daryl realizes it's a baby on his back, in pink footy pajamas, shoved in one of those backpack thingies. The man slowly turns around.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Daryl yells.

"Jesus P. Rovia, actually," Jesus says.

"You're always trying to steal my shit!"

Jesus's eyes flick down Daryl's bare chest, below his waist and back up. He smiles.

Daryl's suddenly mortifyingly aware of his nakedness, and he turns just as Carol bursts out with her gun drawn.

"I'm happy to see you alive, too!" Jesus calls after Daryl as he storms into the arcade to dress.

[*]

It's the Savior foundling Jesus has strapped to his back – Gracie, who's about eleven months old now. They all sit around the air hockey table, eating breakfast, Gracie in Carol's lap and delighting in the applesauce she feeds her.

Jesus tells them he awoke to the smell of fire and the sound of Maggie yelling, "Invaders! Invaders!"

"You were  _attacked_?" asks Carol, alarmed to think that the destruction of the Hilltop was not just nature's cruel callousness, that there might be another Wolves-type tribe in their world.

Jesus nods solemnly. "The guards must have been shot off the fence first. I saw their bodies."

"Who?" Carol asks.

"Kevin."

Carol winces. She still remembers stealing clothes from Kevin when she was first brought to the Kingdom and planning her escape. Why a man whose talents lay mostly in folding laundry should volunteer for night watch, she doesn't know.

"Bertie," Jesus continues.

"Damn," Daryl mutters. "Good supply runner."

"And…" Jesus glances at Carol and then away. "Tobin."

Carol can feel Daryl's concerned gaze. She doesn't want her grief to show, doesn't want Daryl to think she holds any special feelings for Tobin beyond those she holds for any of her Hilltop family. But a choked sob escapes her anyway.

Daryl looks down at the air hockey table and curls his fingers on the surface as if he wishes he had something to snap between them.

"I'm sorry," Jesus says.

Carol settles the spoon she was using to feed Gracie on the table and wipes quickly at her misting eyes.

"He died defending the Hilltop," Jesus says. "I'm sure he got some of the enemy. But in the end, no one could save it. Whoever was attacking us must have tossed over a Molotov cocktail - or something like it – into the hay bale. I think they were using the fire to draw us out to shoot us. They probably meant to put it out when they'd picked us off and then take the place over, but the fire spread quickly."

"The drought," Daryl says. The rain they escaped in the pick-up the night before last was the first they'd had in weeks. "Been dry."

Jesus nods. "In seconds, the fire was everywhere. They destroyed the camp they meant to take."

"How many?" Daryl asks. "Attackers?"

"I don't know. I never saw them. I saw Rick and Ezekiel and some others firing back at them. I couldn't get to them, and I couldn't get to a weapon either. So I started knocking on doors in the mansion to get people up and out. When I got Gracie, the fire was closing in from every direction. I couldn't see a thing. I just took her and took a motorcycle and got out. I thought I found the trail of one of our trucks, but I lost it, and then I…well, I just…wandered. I had to find powdered milk for her." He gestures to Gracie, who is now banging the spoon against the table. "My motorcycle ran out of gas last night. We camped, and then I started hiking early this morning. I'd only gone a mile when I saw your truck."

Daryl tells Jesus about the ten alive and Dead End Winery.

"So some  _did_  get out? And Rick with them?"

"But we don't know which ten," Carol says. "We couldn't make out much at the Hilltop, not with the flames still going and walkers roaming around."

"Ten alive?" Jesus asks. "And with us," he looks around the air hockey table, "that's fourteen. Enough to rebuild."

[*]

The tires of Daryl's motorcycle bounce against the parking lot as he and Jesus slide it down from the top of the truck. Daryl will ride behind the pick-up, because there are only two seats.

Jesus slides into the driver's side of the pick-up while Carol, with Gracie riding her hip, throws her backpack in the hatch and closes it.

"Ya a'ight?" Daryl asks her, eyes roaming her face. He's worried that the news of Tobin's death has hit her hard.

Tobin seemed weak to Daryl at first, but the man turned out to be a reliable soldier in the war, a useful guard at the Hilltop, and a skilled builder. It was hard for Daryl not to give him some grudging respect in time, even though he was always uncomfortably aware that Carol may have shared the mans' bed. Daryl doesn't know if she did. He doesn't ask, because he doesn't  _want_  to know. He just knows they were together,  _somehow_. In some way. Until they weren't.

Daryl has no idea why Carol was with Tobin, if she felt a genuine attraction to him, or if she was just playing a part in Alexandria. But he knows she was the one to end it. She was the one to end it, and yet Tobin was the one to move on to another first. He was sharing a trailer with Barbara, who escaped with them through the sewers from Alexandria, three months before Carol ever came into Daryl's tent. It puzzled Daryl that Tobin could get over Carol so easily.

"I'm okay," Carol assures him, but her thick lashes blink up and down over her eyes, and she swallows.

Instinctively, Daryl puts an arm around her and draws her toward his chest, until Gracie, crushed between them, squeals. "Sorry," Daryl mutters and steps back. He bends his head and kisses the top of Gracie little head. "Forgot you was there." Then, since he's so close anyway, he kisses Carol's forehead, once, quickly, before turning and mounting his motorcycle.

The pick-up starts. The passenger door closes, and soon they're on the street, driving straight into the now fully risen sun. Daryl leans right and guns the motorcycle past Carol's side of the truck before pulling out in front of it. If any of those attackers have survived the Hilltop militia or the fire of their own making - if they're out here somewhere on this highway - they'll have to shoot him first.

[*]

Jesus, who is driving, flips down the sunvisor. "So…uh…." He flashes a smile at Carol as she pries the little blue teddy bear from Gracie's fingers and suctions it back to the dashboard. "Does Daryl always sleep naked?"

Carol flushes. "He must have been washing up when he heard the truck."

"Mhmhm. Sure."

Gracie cries and reaches for the bear, squealing, "Bu -bu -bu – bu" and Carol relents and gives it back to her, even though she doesn't want to see her gift from Daryl damaged. Straight into Gracie's mouth the bear's head goes.

"I guess we all saw it coming," Jesus says. "Sooner or later. Still…I mean…. _Daryl_?"

"What's wrong with Daryl?" Carol asks defensively.

Jesus grins. "Certainly nothing below the belt."

Carol puts her hands over Gracie's ears. "Shh!"

"Pretty sure Gracie has no idea what I'm talking about."

Carol takes her hands off Gracie's ears and strokes the soft brown hair on the top of her head. When she looks up through the windshield, she sees the sign – 5 miles to Aldie, which she knows is 13 miles from Leesburg. After their major detour yesterday, they're back on track.

On the motorcycle in front of them, Daryl raises his arm straight up in the air, and then points off the road. He leans, rides across the grassy median, and zooms over to the opposite shoulder. Soon enough, Carol sees why: a blood donation bus rests abandoned on the shoulder. Maybe it will have some of those boxes of "Snacks for Heroes" and cases of Gatorade, not to mention medical supplies.

Jesus stops the pick-up on their side of the road.

"Stay with Gracie," Carol orders him and hands the baby to Jesus while she unholsters her handgun.

[*]

They circle the blood donation bus, Carol with her handgun drawn and Daryl with his crossbow poised. Carol takes the exit door on one side of the bus, and he takes the entrance door on the other. They both pound on their doors, but there's no response.

Carol comes around to join Daryl at the entrance. She nods and covers him while he yanks at the door. It's locked. "I'll shoot off the lock," Carol tells him. He steps away. She fires once, nods again, and Daryl pulls the now loose door open.

He leaps back when two quick bursts of gunfire come through the open door. He and Carol scurry to opposite ends of the bus and duck behind the tires.


	9. Chapter 9

They wait.

Jesus peeled off in the truck and abandoned them at the sound of gun shots, not that Carol blames him. He has the baby to protect and only the handgun Daryl leant him – with one magazine of eight rounds. He'll probably wait for them up the road a way…assuming they survive.

Carol is tense behind the tire, her muscles tight, her breath sounding too loud in her own ears.

Eventually, the door opens, and a young man – somewhere in his late teens or early twenties - steps out. His skin is a milky brown, like a coffee with one cream, and his head sports a thick mane of curly black hair. There's a pronounced cleft in the chin of his handsome face, and his light brown eyes scan the area, but he overlooks Carol and Daryl's hidey holes. In his hands, he clutches a wooden, semi-automatic Ruger rifle.

Carol whistles, and when they young man looks toward her, Daryl rushes from the opposite direction, slams him against the bus, and disarms him. The barrel of the young man's own gun now points in his face.

"Enid!" the young man yells. "Run!"

Carol's heart thumps at the name. How many Enid's can there be in this world?

The exit door of the bus, on the other side of them, slams open, and a teenage girl with long, brown hair takes off toward the guard rail in a running limp. She vaults over it and disappears down the embankment.

"That  _our_  Enid?" Daryl asks.

"I think it was," Carol says. "I'll go get her."

" _Your_  Enid?" the young man asks.

[*]

"Enid!" Carol yells over the guardrail. "It's me! Carol!" Enid suddenly stops running down the embankment toward the woods, turns, and looks up. Sobbing with relief, she falls to her knees and then winces in pain. A blue bandage trails out from beneath her pants leg and tangles itself in the overgrown, dark green grass.

Carol jumps over the guardrail and slip slides down the hill toward the girl who shared her trailer at the Hilltop, the girl who over the past few months has become something of a daughter to her – an annoying, frustrating, endearing teenage daughter, the girl Sophia never had a chance to grow up to be.

Carol embraces her with joy.

[*]

When Enid and Carol get back inside the bus, Daryl is snooping around in the cabinets. The young man's rifle dangles from his shoulder, while the young man himself, wrists bound tightly with blue bands, is sitting on one of the reclined chairs where people used to lie to give blood. Two of the three other chairs have been turned into beds and are covered with blankets and pillows.

When Enid walks in, Daryl turns to her and growls, "This sonabitch hurt you?"

"No," Enid answers, "Elijah saved me."

"Then why'd he try to kill us?"

"He didn't know who you were," Enid answers. "We were asleep when we heard a pounding, and then there was a gun shot. Why did you shoot at us?"

"We didn't shoot at you," Carol explains. "I was shooting off the lock. We thought the bus was abandoned. We were just going to loot it."

"Ain't no more guns in here," Daryl tells Carol. "Just those." He nods to the countertop where he's laid three hunting knives next to a wooden block of kitchen knives, a bloody axe, and a sheathed cleaver. "Kid's got a shitload of canned and bagged food. Few dozen bottles of water. Twenty gallons of gas. Case of ammo for this rifle. Medicines. Six damn drawers full of batteries. Fuck, he's even got a Gameboy." Daryl holds up the handheld video game system and then sets it back on the counter. "Dozen games, too. Got Ms. Pac-Man, if'n ya want it."

Carol smiles. "I'm not taking his Gameboy, Daryl." Still, she appreciates the thought.

"Enid's bandage came unraveled," Elijah says. "I need to fix it. I should apply more ointment." He raises his bound wrists. "If you could just cut me loose, sir."

Daryl looks him over. Carol doesn't know if he's suspicious of the boy or puzzled by being called  _sir_.

"He's all right," Enid assures him, and Daryl takes one of the knives on the counter and cuts the young man loose.

Enid climbs up onto the chair Elijah vacates, while the young man grabs a medical bag and kneels to treat her. While he does, she tells her story.

"When I woke up, the trailer was on fire." Coughing and fighting smoke, Enid busted the back window and made her way out. The barn was ablaze. So was the porch and awnings of the mansion. Shots were being fired into the Hilltop from the distant trees. She saw Michonne, Rosita, and Tara firing back. "I tried to get my gun and join the fight, but it was in the burning trailer." Bodies lay strewn on the ground – some burned, some shot. Walkers lurched inside the Hilltop through the flames of the crumbling front fence. Maggie organized a bucket brigade and trying to douse the fire, but to no avail. Eventually, Maggie tossed her bucket to the ground and ordered an evacuation.

Enid was separated from Maggie by a crumbling watchtower, which crashed to the ground in flames. The fire ripped toward her and set her pant leg on fire.

"She's got second-degree burns," Elijah says as he returns the ointment to his bag. "This is antibiotic. It should prevent infection and keep it from getting worse. We soaked the wound as soon as I found her and applied lidocaine with aloe vera." He reaches for a roll of gauze.

"I dropped and rolled until the fire was out," Enid continues. Then she fled, limping through the pain. A saddled horse thundered up beside her, missing its rider. Someone had probably tried to escape and been shot off. She mounted the horse and galloped through the now open back gates of the Hilltop and tried to ride off after a departing pick-up truck, but the horse was spooked by a gunshot and turned and galloped in another direction.

"I just held on for dear life," Enid says.

The horse crashed through the woods for a good mile, fleeing the smoke of the growing fire, and emerged onto the road on the other side. But when it tried to leap the hood of an abandoned car, its hoof caught. Enid went flying several feet into a ditch. She heard the horse's leg snap just before her head hit the shoulder and she lost consciousness. "I came to when I heard Elijah firing."

"I was driving by," Elijah explains as he tapes down the fresh bandage on Enid's leg, "and I saw the horse lying in the road, still moving. Barely. A couple of the soulless were closing in. I took them down and put the horse out of its misery. It was untouched, and I was starting to cut it up for meat when I saw Enid trying to crawl away through the ditch."

Carol's eyes are drawn to the two medicine refrigerators beneath the counters. She opens one and finds paper-wrapped meat inside.

"Please shut that quickly," Elijah says. "I can only run the power a couple hours a day. I need to keep the cool trapped."

"Sorry." Carol slams the door shut.

"I thought Elijah was one of the attackers," Enid says, "so I tried to crawl away. I was in so much pain. I couldn't get far. He caught me, and I thought it was all over. But he helped me. He shot two more walkers that came out of the woods, brought me into the bus, treated my burns, gave me food and water. If not for him, it probably would have been walkers who woke me up.  _Eating_  me alive."

Elijah lowers Enid's pant leg over the fresh bandage, stands, and leans back against the opposite chair.

"'S yer story?" Daryl looks him over guardedly. "Where's yer camp?"

"This bus is my camp. My mom was a phlebotomist. In Fort Worth."

"Texas?" Carol asks, and she can't help but think of Rosita and Eugene, who along with Abraham made their way from Houston. She wonders if either Rosita or Eugene are among the  _ten alive_ , and if she's ever fully forgiven Eugene enough to  _want_  him to be. The man redeemed himself by making blanks of the Saviors bullets, by deceiving them into thinking they were well armed for war. He hasn't been much use since, except for reloading their spent brass, which a half a dozen other people know how to do just as well. Still, she'll be sad to lose Eugene, if he's dead. She'll mourn worse for Rosita. They've never been particularly close, Rosita and Carol, but Carol respects her, and Rosita has been a part of the family for longer than many. She reminds Carol of Daryl in some ways - the same aloof disdain for incompetence, the same false bravado masking a heart that cares.

"Yeah," Elijah answers. "My mom worked on this bus. When it all started, she just stole the thing. Grabbed me and my older brother and my sister and we fled north, hoping the soulless weren't everywhere. But they were. We ended up settling at a national park in Tennessee. We lived there for about six months with about thirty other people. Then everyone started dying. Some kind of flu or something. Our mother died. My sister died. My brother and I were afraid of getting sick. So we took the bus and we moved on. Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia…Virginia."

"And y'all just lived in this bus?" Daryl asks. "You an yer brother, almost two years?"

"Well, we settled in another camp in Ohio for a few months, but while my brother and I were on a supply run, it was attacked. We came back to find it empty, looted. The men dead, the women missing. So we took the bus and moved on again. We just kept moving."

"Yer brother," Daryl asks, "where's he at?"

"He got bit two months ago, when he was out hunting. He's gone."

Carol's heard a hundred of these stories by now. They should cease to move her. But they don't.

"And now ya just live alone?" Daryl asks. "Ever since your brother died, ya ain't got no people?"

Elijah nods. "Yeah. I go around scavenging. Siphon gas wherever I can. Gather canned food. Try to drive the bus forty miles a day, keep the battery charged, for the electricity." He points to the two small medicine refrigerators, to a hot pot on the counter, to an electric griddle, and to a battery recharger plugged into and outlet.

"Just you?" Daryl asks.

"Just me."

Daryl glances at Carol, who says, "Daryl and I are going to talk outside for a bit."

They walk some distance from the bus, back toward Daryl's motorcycle. Daryl's crossbow swings from his right shoulder, the young man's rifle from his left.

"On a scale of one to ten," Carol asks as Daryl sits sideways on the bike, his legs outstretched on the pavement, "How much do you trust Elijah?"

"Six."

" _That_  high?" Daryl was shooting the kid a lot of suspicious looks for a six.

"Kid had Enid three nights," Daryl replies. "He's got a gun and she don't. And he ain't raped her."

"Mighty chivalrous of him."

"In this world?" Daryl reasons.

He's right, and Carol hates that he's right. "That's really worth a six?"

"It's worth a five. Him bein' a dumb ass and gettin' himself disarmed so easy, well, that's minus two. But him comin' out to deal with us and leavin' her safe inside? That's plus two."

"Five minus two plus two is five. Not six."

"Hell is this?" he grumbles. "First grade math class?"

She chuckles.

"Gave him one for treatin' her burns."

"So should we take him with us?" she asks. "Let him settle at the winery with whoever's left?"

Daryl glances back at the bus. "You're call, Councilwoman."

Carol was on the five-person Hilltop Council that was established after the War, along with Rick, Maggie, Ezekiel, and Siddiq, who gained the admiration of the Hilltop by serving as its doctor and saving many lives during the war. Daryl wasn't elected, a fact that puzzled Carol but didn't seem to bother him. The council terms were supposed to last six months, and they were planning to hold elections again soon, but Carol supposes all that will change now that they are a community of only fifteen. Sixteen, if they take Elijah with them.

"He's all alone out here," Carol says. "And he saved one of ours. He clearly has some medical knowledge that may prove useful." Especially if Siddiq is not one of the ten alive. "I'd say he's earned his place, and we should invite him to come with us. But we should also keep a careful eye on him for a while."

Daryl nods. "I'll go check if Jesus is waitin' up ahead, and then we'll tell the boy he can come with us."

[*]

Daryl doesn't have to go far. Jesus and Gracie are just a half mile up the road, pulled off behind some brush, Gracie locked and buckled inside, Jesus outside with his handgun drawn over the still warm hood of the truck, listening for gunfire, hoping for the best but ready for the worst.

When Daryl purrs the motorcycle to a stop, without turning it off, and steadies it with his booted-heels on the gravel shoulder, Jesus holsters the handgun and asks, "Carol?"

"'S fine. Graice?"

"Scared." Jesus opens the door of the pick-up and gathers the crying little girl into his arms to comfort her. She's clutching Carol's little blue teddy bear, and when she sees Daryl, she falls silent and shoves the bear's head in her mouth.

"'S Carol's," Daryl tells her. "Don't eat it." He jerks his head up the road back toward the bus. "Found Enid. C'mon." He puts his feet back on the bike, leans into a U-turn, and zooms off.


	10. Chapter 10

When Daryl returns with Jesus and Gracie, he finds Enid sitting on the bottom of two stairs that have been lowered down from the front door of the bus. Carol leans back against the double o in  _Blood_ , and Elijah stands before Enid extending her a piece of dry fruit from a bag.

Enid doesn't take the fruit. She rises when she sees Jesus, with Gracie on his hip, and rushes over to hug them. "Eeeny!" Gracie reaches out her arms to the older girl.

Enid takes the baby and smiles at her before looking from Daryl to Carol and asking, "Are there other survivors?"

Carol tells Enid about the ten alive and Dead End Winery. "You're welcome to come with us, Elijah," she says. "And join our camp."

Elijah walks closer to the circle of old friends. "No, thank you, ma'am. I prefer to stick to the road."

"What?" Enid shouts. "You're alone!" Gracie makes a sour face and pulls back from Enid's raised voice, and Jesus takes the baby from her arms.

"And I've survived well alone," Elijah replies. "I was willing to take you on the road with me, since I thought you had no one left. But clearly you do."

"My people," Enid pleads with him, "they're good people. And they have skills. There are fifteen of us at least, alive, and we can rebuild. We can make a camp at this winery. You can be a part of that!"

Elijah shakes his head. "Camps breed disease. They get attacked and destroyed."

"So do buses!" Enid waves angrily at the blood donation bus. "Especially nice ones like yours, with electricity and supplies."

"Not if they keep moving, they don't. No one finds you if you don't stay in the same place more than one night. No one tries to take what you have if you don't build anything."

"But you can't do it alone," Enid pleads. "You'll go insane. Don't you want to be with people?"

"I want to  _live_."

"That's not living," Enid insists. "What you're doing, driving around all by yourself – it's not  _living_."

Elijah looks at Daryl. "Could I have my rifle back, please, sir? I'll need it."

Daryl's hand tightens on the strap. He once told Merle that they couldn't do things without people anymore. He still believes that. But he couldn't stop Merle from being Merle. Daryl hands Elijah the gun.

Enid turns on him. "You can't be serious, Daryl! You can't just let him go!"

"Ain't gonna knock him out and throw him over my shoulder."

"You have to do something!"

"He's a grown ass man," Daryl tells Enid. "More or less. Makes his own damn decisions."

"He's alone! He's only twenty!"

"Enid," Elijah says softly, "unless your friends are planning to  _force_  me to come with you, I think this has to be goodbye."

Enid shakes her head and tries to storm off, but limps instead, toward the pick-up. Jesus follows her.

"Are you sure you won't reconsider?" Carol asks Elijah softly.

"No, ma'am."

She sighs. "Then will you at least barter with us for medical supplies before you go? Our friends, when we find them, might have injuries. We can trade you for food."

"I've got plenty of food. I'm sorry, but medical supplies are more valuable than that."

Daryl can tell Carol really wants those supplies, that it would make her feel better about greeting the ten alive after everything they've gone through. "Got booze," he says. "Southern Comfort. Vodka. Gin."

Elijah's eyes light up. "Booze I could use. That's multipurpose and it lasts a long time."

[*]

After they exchange supplies, they say goodbye outside the bus. Elijah extends a sheathed hunting knife to Enid, holding it in two hands like a king presenting a gift to a knight. "I know you're unarmed. This is the best I can do."

Enid's hand closes over the weapon. "Thank you." She steps forward and kisses Elijah on his dimpled cheek. "And thank you for saving me." As she attaches the knife to her brown leather belt, she says, "You can still come with us, you know."

"It's not too late," Carol agrees.

"It  _is_  too late," Elijah replies. "Too late to settle. Too late to build. Too late to start again. You just lose people. Every time. And you  _keep on_  losing people. You know it. You just lost your camp."

Carol grits her teeth and chokes back the rising pain, the fear over what she'll find – or more accurately  _won't_  find – at Dead End Winery. Daryl drapes an arm loosely but comfortingly around her shoulders. It's not a gesture he makes often. "But our people," he says, his voice gruff and certain, "we build anyway." He looks down at Carol. "Ain't that right?"

Carol reaches up and squeezes his hand on her shoulder. "That's right."

[*]

The motorcycle eases to a stop alongside the curb and Carol dismounts. Daryl's heel pops the kickstand down, and then he gets off, too. He jerks his chin toward a walker that is lurching down the brick walkway toward them.

Carol slides out one of her throwing knives and chucks it with an effortless flick of her wrist. The walker slumps to the ground. While she goes to recover the knife, Daryl walks to the pick-up truck, opens the passenger's side door, and takes Gracie off Enid's lap so the teenager can get out.

"'S Carol's bear," Daryl tells Gracie and tries to pry the blue teddy bear from her tight grip, but Gracie won't let go. "C'mon, Little Iron Claw. 'S Carol's."

"Bu bu bu buhhh!" she demands.

Daryl stops fighting her for the bear. "Fine. Just don't slobber all over it. 'S Carol's."

Jesus, who has come around from the driver's side, reaches out, and Daryl hands over the baby, who, once in Jesus's arms, promptly puts the bear's head in her mouth.

Daryl grumbles.

Gracie pops the bear's head out of her mouth and giggles, a gurgling, bubbling laugh, almost as cute as Judith's laugh was at that age. Judith's laugh is not as adorable as it used to be. It's a bit of a high-pitched cackle now, downright annoying, really, but Daryl can't wait to be annoyed by it again.

[*]

While Jesus keeps guard over Gracie and the vehicles, Carol and Enid walk side by side down the historic Main Street of Leesburg in search of a winery map. Daryl leads the way. He raises his crossbow when another walker lurches out of the alleyway between two brick buildings a yard away.

"No," Carol tells him. "Let Enid. She needs to try out the new knife."

Daryl lowers his bow and steps to the side while Enid unsheaths her knife. She glances at Carol, who nods her approval. The girl marches forward, still limping a little, to slide her blade into the squishy forehead of the walker. The creature slides to the sidewalk.

They walk on, Daryl out in front again.

"I can't believe Elijah wouldn't come," Enid mutters. "I wish you'd done more to try to convince him."

"Honey," Carol says, "if a pretty young girl like you couldn't convince him, I doubt an old hag like me could."

Daryl turns back. "Who the hell ya callin' an old hag?" he barks. He turns forward again and mutters underneath his breath, "Goddamn beautiful."

Carol doesn't think she was meant to hear that last part, but she does, and she smiles.

"He was nice," Enid says. "Not to mention kind of cute. I just don't get it, why anyone would want to be alone."

"Don't you, though?" Carol asks. "How long after your parents died did it take you to walk up to the gates of Alexandria? And how long after you moved in there did you keep sneaking off into the woods?"

"True…I guess. But I haven't snuck off for a long time. And I was  _so_  happy to see you!"

Daryl comes to a stop before the shattered window of a wine tasting room. His arrow soars through the opening and into a walker stumbling around behind the counter. Carol opens the shattered door and walks inside.

"Why do people always have to topple over everything?" Enid walks over the top a wooden wine rack that lies on its side. "Why can't they just loot neatly?"

Daryl recovers his arrow while Carol and Enid stand up a wooden pamphlet rack that's lying face down. Carol grabs the  _Loudon County Wine Trail_  map, unfolds it, and runs her finger down the listings. "It's K on the map."

"Here." Enid points to the red balloon with the letter K.

Carol turns to Daryl, who is cleaning his arrow as he approaches. "Leesburg doesn't really  _mean_  Leesburg, apparently. It's actually near Bluemont."

"How far?" Daryl mutters.

"About fifteen or twenty more miles," Carol answers. "But it's mostly country that way, it looks like. We shouldn't need to make detours."

Daryl glances around the mostly empty shop and says, "Let's move."

[*]

Carol tightens her grip around Daryl's waist as the motorcycle crests a hill and the purple peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains come into view again. The scene before them looks like a painting peppered with color – ridiculous reds, outrageous oranges, and gorgeous golds fill the trees, while the azure sky bursts into view between wispy white clouds. Daryl picks up speed, and the autumn wind whirls around them as they go flying and curving down the foothills, like birds diving for a lakeside meal.

At the bottom of the hill stands a dark blue sign with a cluster of purple grapes in the corner, splattered by the black-brown guts of two fallen walkers. A bullet hole nestles inside the D of "Dead End Winery." An arrow on the sign points left to a narrow dirt road, and the distance is printed beneath it in a bold white font: 0.8 miles.

Daryl leans into the turn.


	11. Chapter 11

As they ride, Carol spies in the distance a brick wall, about waist-height, with an opening only for the road, and several yards beyond that, a tall, cast iron fence that spreads for acres in either direction. But it's what's beyond the iron fence that makes Carol's eyes grow wide and her heart thud: clawing grape vines thick with globous green grapes, fenced-in plots bursting with six different colors of crops, and two long rows of ripe apple trees.

"Daryl," she calls over the roar of the motorcycle as it glides past a free-standing STOP sign rooted in a concrete block. "Do you see all that?"

There's a sudden burst, and the front tire of the motorcycle blows out. Daryl steers into the skid, but it's not enough to keep them from toppling. They both go careening off the bike, roll on the dusty earth, and gather themselves to their feet, weapons drawn.

The pick-up screeches to a sudden halt at the STOP sign, and Jesus jumps down from the driver's side. Enid remains inside, where she makes Gracie kneel below the dash and watches through the windshield. Jesus walks past the STOP sign and puts the toe of his black combat boot on a carefully disguised set of copper spikes designed to pop tires going up the road, but not coming out.

"Shiiit," Daryl mutters, and turns in a circle, crossbow raised.

Carol's eyes drink in all the evidence of a strong camp – stronger than the Hilltop ever was - not just the crops, but irrigation ditches, tractors, pick-up trucks, wells, a gristmill on what must be a broad creek, two barns, animal pens filled with goats, sheep, and hogs, a windmill, and watchtowers.

A whistle sounds, low and long, from the watchtower in the midst of the fruit trees. Carol can't see anyone on the stand, because its covered with ivy and other greenery. There's an answering whistle from another watchtower beyond the barn, where she can see the shadow of a figure and the glint of a scope. Another whistle arises behind the low brick wall to the left, and again to the right, and then somewhere near the center. Then, all at once, six armed men spring up from behind the brick wall and level their guns.

They must have seen the motorcycle and pick-up on the highway from the watchtowers and taken a defensive position. They've clearly been lying in wait.

One man, who wears a dark brown rancher crown hat, holds a bullhorn to his lips. "You have five seconds to drop your weapons." His voice sounds like it probably booms  _without_  a bullhorn. "Or you'll immediately be shot by our snipers. There are more than you see behind this wall. 5…"

Jesus raises one hand while he unholsters the handgun he hasn't yet drawn and slowly sets it on the ground.

"4…"

Carol drops her handgun to the ground and shows her palms.

"3…" Daryl squats and places his crossbow on the earth and then stands straight again, hands raised.

"Everyone out of the truck," calls the man with the bullhorn.

Carol nods to Enid. Enid slides out nervously with Gracie in her arms.

"Drop your gun!" the man calls.

"She doesn't have a gun!" Carol yells back.

The man puts his bullhorn on the top of the brick wall and raises the binoculars that are draped around his neck. Then he lowers them again and nods to three men, who shoulder their rifles and jog out to collect the weapons.

The leader leaves his bullhorn and makes his slow, steady way down the dirt road toward them. Up close, he looks to be older than Hershel was – grizzly, gray-haired, wrinkled, weathered, and worn. Carol wonders if this could be Caitlyn's grandfather, the original owner of the winery. Despite his advanced age, he stands like a solid brick, a tall, powerful, looming presence. His voice is deep and rings with a slow southern accent. "Javier, go check out that truck. See what's inside, why don't you?"

One of the armed men, who sports a tightly-shaved buzz cut and lightly tanned skin, holds his hand out to Jesus. "Keys." Javier's build and the stern look on his face reminds Carol, for a moment, of Shane.

Jesus reluctantly hands the keys over. Javier jogs over to the truck and begins exploring inside it.

"We're looking for our friends," Carol says directly to the old man who is so obviously in charge. "Caitlyn Weatherford." She hopes her guess is right and that he knows the name. "And Rick Grimes."

Daryl glances back with a frown at Javier loudly rifling through their things.

The old man tilts his hat up, which reveals a nasty scar on his forehead. He grimaces. "Rick Grimes told me my granddaughter was dead. That she died in an attack on your camp."

"You're Amos Weatherford?" Jesus asks. "Caitlyn's grandfather?"

"I am."

"We didn't know who survived," Carol tells him. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Truth be told, I didn't even know my granddaughter was alive to lose until your friend Rick showed up here."

"Are our friends here?" Carol takes an anxious step forward, but she's pushed back by the two armed men who flank Amos.

"Watch your step, ma'm," Amos says calmly but a little bit ominously. He nods to one of his armed men. "Mason, go tell the workers they can return to the fields."

"Yes, sir." Mason marches off up the road.

Javier, who is returning from the pick-up, takes his place beside Amos. His eyes flit carefully and coolly from Jesus to Carol to Daryl, who stand across from him. "No one's inside the truck," he says to Amos as he keeps his eyes fixed on Daryl. "They have canned food, feminine products, battery packs, oil, coolant, and medical supplies."

"Our friends?" Carol pleads.

"Your friends are not here," Amos Weatherford replies. "I dispensed with your friends."

"Dispensed with 'em?" Daryl takes a menacing step forward, only to be pushed back by Javier.

Amos turns his silver-blue eyes slowly to Daryl. "I sent them on their merry way. Fully intact." Javier steps back beside Amos and Daryl stays put. "I have no bone to pick with strangers," Amos continues, "but I no longer welcome them on my land. Not since the recent unpleasantness."

Javier's eyes harden and he clutches his rifle more tightly. That's when Carol notices the graveyard beyond the iron fence, between the main house and one of the barns, marked by well-tended crosses.

"But as I told your Rick Grimes, if y'all ever come here wishing to trade, and you stop before that sign," Amos points to the STOP sign that stands before the spiked trap that popped the front tire of the motorcycle, "and you lay down all your weapons, and you holler, we'll send some men out to trade. But if you  _ever_  again venture  _beyond_  this STOP sign, we'll kill you all. On sight."

"Seems excessive," Jesus says.

"We live in excessive times," Amos replies. He smiles at Gracie on Enid's hip, waves his fingers one by one to her, and then tips his hat to her. The little girl narrows her eyes at him in puzzlement.

"Did Rick say where he was going?" Carol asks.

"He asked me if any of his friends showed up to tell y'all to rendezvous with him at Hillcrest Vineyards. If you go back out this dirt road to route seven, keep going a spell, and then turn north on the next farm to market road, it's a few miles up that."

"Who was with him?" Enid asks. "Can you describe the others?"

Carol's heart flips and flops in her chest. She wants to know, and she doesn't want to know.

"They stopped their trucks  _way_  down the road, and he was the only one who walked all the way up here. Your Rick Grimes wisely  _stopped_  at the  _stop_  sign. I don't know what the others looked like."

Carol feels at once relieved and disappointed not to know. "What are you willing to trade?" she asks, to take her mind from the ten alive, and because it's practical to know.

"We have apples and peaches," Amos answers, "jams and preserves, corn, corn meal, wheat flour, wine, juice, goat's milk, sheep's milk, eggs, grapes, greens, tobacco, and fall squash. We've got wells on my property, pumps, too. We can fill drums of water. We take only batteries, gas, oil, ammunition, and medical supplies."

"What would you give us right now," Carol asks, "for two of our battery jumper packs? Fully charged."

"Can you throw in some of your antibiotics?" Javier asks.

[*]

They leave with Daryl's motorcycle latched to the top of the pick-up and Carol and Daryl jammed in the bed, between two refillable ten-gallon drums of well water, with a crate of fresh produce at their feet. Daryl tosses a green grape in the air and tries to catch it in his mouth. When it falls onto Carol's thigh instead, she snatches it up and slurps it down.

"Hey!" he says.

"You snooze, you lose."

He leans forward to snag another out of the crate and she smacks his hand playfully. "Save those for the kids."

He leans back against the wall of the cab again. The tail gate is up, but the hatch is open, and they can see the highway disappearing as Jesus turns onto the farm to market road that leads to Hillcrest Vineyards.

Carol reaches for his hand. He spreads open his fingers, a cautious invitation, and she laces her fingers through his. He turns his head and looks through the window of the cab to find Gracie teething on the bear's head again. He sighs and thuds his head back against the glass. "That kid's gonna ruin your bear."

"Well," Carol teases with a smile, "you'll just have to win your girl another one sometime."

Daryl's shy eyes caress her face. "Yeah," he murmurs. "M'girl." He leans in and kisses her lips. Not long, and not hard. It's a small gesture, but because it's completely unsolicited, it feels big.

The warmth of Daryl's lips lingers long after he looks forward again.

Carol lays her head on his shoulder as the pick-up kicks up dust and climbs a bumpy hill toward whatever truth awaits them.


	12. Chapter 12

Jesus pulls the pick up to a crunching stop on the gravel parking lot. Nestled between two tall oak trees rests a rambler-style structure marked with mud-smeared white wood letters that spell – WINE TASTIN ROO. The G and M have fallen to the earth. Two large wine barrels out front serve as trash cans and ashtrays.

Three of them spill out of the truck, but Enid once again remains with Gracie on her lap. As usual, Jesus doesn't bother to draw his handgun, a fact that irritates Daryl. The man must think he walks on water. Daryl struts ahead of him, crossbow trained on the tasting room, and veers off to the side of the door so Carol – who has the damn good sense to  _have_  her gun drawn – can open the door.

Daryl leaps inside and sweeps the room. His boots crunch over broken glass. The scent of stale wine mixed with rotting flesh assaults his nostrils. He kicks a wine goblet out of his way, and it rolls until it hits the tasting bar. Two walker bodies, shot through the head, lay face down on the floor, their decayed flesh pooled and stuck like gum to the hardwood floor. The place is empty of all wine and snacks, and a stand-alone shelf lies face down in the corner, with wine corks, coasters, and other nick knacks strewn across the floor.

Carol covers her mouth and coughs as she enters.

"Any sign of them?" Jesus asks when he strolls in behind her.

Daryl nods at the floor, where a partial boot print has been carved out in the sticky walker flesh. "'S two days, maybe. Someone checked it out. Didn't find nothin' work takin'."

The horn honks twice in the parking lot. Daryl and Carol both bolt for the door and nearly collide with each other in its frame. Daryl steps back to allow her through first, which he realizes a beat too late is not actually the chivalrous thing to do in an apocalypse. So he hurries after, intent on covering her from behind. But there's nothing to shoot at. Enid sits in the passenger's seat of the truck, pointing through the windshield at the dirt road beyond the tasting room.

Daryl whirls to see Rick sprinting toward them, a revolver on his hip and a pair of binoculars bouncing against his chest. Daryl jogs toward him and falls on his neck in a grateful embrace.

"Brother," Rick mutters, and they slap each other's backs. "We saw you from the watchtower."

Daryl pulls away and eyes his shirt, which is a pink buttondown.

"I had to pick up some clothes up on the road," Rick explains.

By now, Enid has slipped out of the truck with Gracie, and Jesus has emerged from the wine tasting room. When Rick see them all, he choke-laughs with gratitude.

"'S what we picked up on the road," says Daryl. He looks over Rick's shoulder, fear settling like a thick lump of coal in his stomach. "Where're the other nine?"

"The rest are up at the Bed and Breakfast. C'mon."

[*]

The pick-up thuds in and out of a pothole in the dirt road. Carol sits sandwiched between Daryl and Rick on the folded-down tailgate while Jesus drives. No one has asked which nine are still live, because no one can bring themselves to ask, and Rick, apparently, can't bring himself to volunteer the information.

When they park and hop down, Carol walks around the front of the truck and beholds the three-story Bed and Breakfast. The inn's white paint peels lightly in a dozen places, and several of the planks are caked with mud from passing storms. A broad staircase leads up to the covered, wrap-around porch, which is lined with worn wicker rocking chairs. A porch swing creaks loudly in the autumn breeze. Between the inn and the overgrown fields that must have once contained well-trained vines, there rises a stand. Perhaps it was once used to overlook the field workers or to shoot meddlesome grape-munching deer, but now it's a watchtower. Aaron clamors down from the platform to greet them.

Enid runs and embraces him like a long lost big brother. Jesus approaches next, and there's such an awkward show of space-keeping, half hugging, and manly nodding that Carol can only guess something must have transpired between the two men while she and Daryl were on the supply run.

When everyone has gotten their greeting in, and Aaron returns to his watch duties, Rick leads them up the six creaky stairs to the heavy front door and into the foyer, where a glass chandelier hovers thirty feet above their heads and a winding staircase leads to two additional levels. The paint is in fairly good shape here inside, but the wooden stairs are coated with a thick layer of dust, except where footprints – going up and down - are carved out. Among them is at least one small pair, the size of Judith's little feet, and Carol's heart sings. But it grows heavy again as Rick leads them silently toward the library on the bottom floor. She opens and closes her hand nervously, her heart thudding in her chest.

When they enter a library, she sees the glint of the katana first, resting on the mantle of the fireplace. Michonne, who is reaching into the bookcase for a book, turns, and a bitter-sweet smile spreads across her face. She slams the book back on top of a row of books and hurries to embrace her friends.

When Carol pulls back from Michonne's arms, she sees the playpen beneath the window. Little H.G. lies sleeping on his back, his fuzzy black hair in adorable disarray and his tiny limbs clothed in a new, blue one-piece onesie. Judith sits on the floor, her back to a low couch, and her legs outstretched beneath the coffee table, where she appears to be struggling to put together a ten-piece jigsaw puzzle. She looks up and spies Daryl. "Unca D!" she shouts. "Unca D!"

The toddler stands and runs to him, her long dirty blonde curls bouncing on her back, and he lifts her up and twirls her around before swallowing her up in his embrace. Judith pulls back, puts a hand on both his cheeks and shakes his head roughly back and forth. "Unca D makes funny noise!" she demands. Daryl purses his lips together and then blows, until a blubbering raspberry sound escapes him, and she cackles.

"Missed that laugh," Daryl tells her, and squeezes her one more time before letting her down.

By now, Gracie has squirmed down from Enid's arms, crawled to the coffee table, and pulled herself up using it. She now slaps her hand palm down on the table and squeals at the sound it makes and the way it cuases the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to leap.

"I'll get the others," Michonne says and disappears through the open doorway.

They trickle in one by one. Nabila, the Kingdom's gardener who was eventually put in charge of the Hilltop's agricultural committee, enters first. She's crying for joy to see more of her friends alive, but also for sorrow, because she has lost her own two-year-old daughter, who was snatched from her by the flames that consumed the Hilltop - a terrible, double blow after already losing her husband in the war against the Saviors.

When Gracie sees her, she shouts, "Mm Mm Mmilll!" and takes three wobbly steps toward the woman before falling to her knees and crawling.

Once she moved from the Kingdom to the Hilltop, Nabila played wet nurse to Gracie, since she still had her milk in from nursing her own daughter. Gracie will drink juice, water, or formula from a bottle, but it makes little sense to fully wean a child too early in this world when a free, self-sustaining supply of milk is available. Nabila bends, picks the baby up, and goes over to the couch, where she sits down, grabs the nursing blanket that is draped over the play pen, covers herself, and begins to feed the girl.

Daryl flushes and looks away.

Ezekiel comes in next, his footsteps heavy and solemn. He lays a hand on each of Carol's shoulders and quotes Tennyson in soulful tones: "Ring out the grief that saps the mind, for those that were here, we see no more." He looks around. "But there is solace in seeing you few alive, my dear friends…" He hugs Carol first, and then the others, one by one.

Rosita follows. She doesn't look her usually cocky self, but instead a vulnerable mixture of pain and joy.

Daryl nods to her and says, "Good to see ya alive" while Carol gives her a hug.

Tara enters next, and then finally Morgan.

_Henry?_  Carol mouths silently, because Morgan was the one to train the boy in the use of the staff and to keep a watchful eye out for him. Morgan hangs his head. "We were separated by the fire. He didn't make it out."

Carol closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she surveys the ten alive, or, rather, the nine, since Aaron is still on watch. She counts. And then she counts again. And again. Over and over, hoping against hope she's counted wrong. "Maggie?" she asks.

When Rick shakes his head, Carol mutters, "No.  _No_." Maggie, who's been with her since before the prison – Maggie, the mother of that precious baby boy who now beings to stir to wakefulness in his playpen.

Carol stumbles back against a book case. A great, sorrowful sob rips up from some deep, dark place inside her. Daryl lunges for her like he's throwing himself in front of a bullet and draws her against his chest. She balls the fabric of his shirt into tight fists.

H.G. awakes with a wail.

Michonne gathers the crying infant up from the playpen, and Nabila boots Gracie from her breast to suckle the infant back to sleep.

Carol eases away from Daryl's embrace. "Did you  _see_  Maggie killed?" she demands.

"No," Rick says.

"So she could still be alive out there somewhere! So could Henry. So could Dwight and Sherry. Eugene. Father Gabriel. Siddiq. Jerry. So could a dozen other – "

" – Carol," Rick interrupts softly. "I saw Father Gabriel catch fire."

Rosita grimaces. "And I saw Eugene get shot." She grits her teeth. "And then I missed the bastard who shot him by a centimeter. He got away."

"We don't know what happened to the others," Rick tells her. "But a lot of people died. A  _lot_. I don't want to hold out false hope to you."

Carol paces the length of the library. Daryl stops her on her third go, with a hand on her shoulder, his fingers digging so deep that the sensation finally forces her to look into his eyes. "Found Jesus and Gracie," he says. "Found Enid. Hell, maybe more of 'em  _did_  make it out. Fire's done passed through the Hilltop by now. Walkers oughtta be thinned out 'nuff I can get in there. I can go back t'morrow. Read the sign I couldn't 'fore. Look for tracks."

Carol nods firmly and meets his determined eyes with an equally determined resolve. "I'm coming with you. We leave at sunrise."


	13. Chapter 13

Behind Daryl, oil paintings of Virginia landscapes bookend a tall, solid oak hutch displaying dusty china. Across from him, and above Carol's head, stretches a horizontal painting of Monticello. A single ray of the setting sun cuts across the canvas. Michonne lights the candles in the silver candelabra that rests on the center of the formal dining table and sits back down.

Daryl shifts uncomfortably in the stiff dining chair. This place is too fancy, like the Hilltop's mansion. He was happy to pitch a small tent in the shadow of Carol's trailer. He wonders how people could have ever  _vacationed_  here. It's not exactly  _relaxing_. And the idea of paying to eat breakfast with strangers makes no sense to him at all. He'd pay extra just to eat alone.

Dinner is over, but the survivors still linger, except Nabila and Enid, who are watching over H.G., Judith, and Gracie in the library, and Tara, who is standing watch.

"Michonne and Judith and I took the master suite on the main floor," Rick says. "There are five bedrooms on the second floor. H.G. is staying with Nabila in one, since she's feeding him. Rosita, Tara, Ezekiel, and Morgan have the other four. Aaron's on the third floor. There are three more bedrooms up there. Obviously Gracie shouldn't be alone, so maybe she can stay with Enid. But that leaves two rooms for three people."

"I can share a room with Jesus," Aaron says, glances at Jesus, and seems to regret his offer. "Or I could just take the couch in that living room up there, and Jesus is welcome to the bedroom."

"I'll be fine anywhere," Jesus replies. "I don't mind doubling up." Daryl can feel the amused man's eyes on him. "But there's probably some others here who wouldn't mind sharing a room."

Daryl pretends to be studying the painting of Monticello and not to be watching Carol's reaction. He can't say he's never thought about it before - the two of them, sharing a bed, not just when the whim strikes her, but every night. Not for sex, necessarily – though he certainly wouldn't mind a hell of a lot more of that – but for…company.

It's a strange word in his mind,  _company_. Company's not something he's ever actively sought. And maybe it's for the best that Carol never tried to move into his tent. He probably doesn't make very good company in large doses.

But if that's what she's thinking, she doesn't show it. Carol doesn't seem to hear Jesus. She's lost in thought, staring at the candles flickering on the table. And soon enough, he  _does_  know what she's thinking, because she asks, "Is this place defendable?"

"I think so," Rick replies. "It can't be seen from the road until you reach that tasting room. There are about two hundred acres of fields, behind, before, and to the sides, and we've got a clear view of them all from that stand."

"And beyond those," Morgan adds, "there's nothing but miles of forest. If anyone's getting a vehicle in here, they'll have to come  _up_  the road at us."

"You probably saw that fence we've started building," Rick continues, "just above the tasting room. There was some unused lumber and other building supplies here. I think they were planning to expand the winery floor."

"It's a good location for a camp," Michonne agrees. "The inn can fit us all, with room to grow. The winery building has some good cool-room storage. We can set up a pantry in there and a root cellar. There's a barn, and a workshop with tools."

"There's a fresh water creek in the woods beyond the fields to the left," Ezekiel adds. "Perchance we can design irrigation channels and mills using the book of knowledge as our guide."

"You got the book out?" Carol asks. The sweet note of hope in her voice pricks Daryl's heart.

"Indeed I did," Ezekiel said. "I grabbed it on my way out the window, as if I were seizing the family Bible. Nabila says the land looks fertile, but we'll need to lay down something for weevil control."

"We'll grow our own food eventually," Rick assures them. "In the meantime, Daryl can hunt, and we can trade. I suppose at least one of you met Caitlyn's grandfather at Dead End Winery? Amos?"

"Yes," Jesus answers. "And that camp looks extremely well supplied. It's a shame they won't let us join them."

"They used to take in refugees," Rick explains. "People they found or who came to their gates. But six months ago, a group they took in tried to take over from the inside, at night, while everyone but the outside watch was asleep. There were a number of rapes and deaths before they could be stopped. They're wary of strangers now. To say the least."

"Even women?" Jesus asks.

"There were women among the refugees," Rick says. "Some of them even helped the men to rape. Held the victims down and kept them silent through the whole…" He swallows and grits his teeth.

Michonne's mouth falls open slightly in disbelief. It must be the first time Rick has related these details.

Rosita shakes her head. "It's bad enough when women  _put up_  with abuse from their men, but to  _help_  them deliver it?"

Daryl tenses. Rosita knows nothing of Carol's past as an abused wife. No one does, really, except him and Rick. It's not something she talks about. He looks at Carol, but she looks away at a melted taper behind a glass and wood enclosure on the wall. "Were you able to trade with Amos?" she asks.

Rick nods. "I got some seeds and plant cuttings using a few of things we scavenged on the way here. To give us a start."

Carol looks back from the candle. "And what else do we have for supplies right now? Beside what Daryl and I brought?"

"We made it out of the Hilltop with five rifles," Rosita answers, "four handguns, and about a hundred rounds of ammunition. We found another two rifles and a few boxes of ammo on the road."

"And here? At the Inn?" Carol asks.

"Alas, very little of value," Ezekiel replies. "Someone came before us. They scavenged, shot walkers, and left their bodies behind."

"Most likely Amos Weatherford's men," Rick surmises. "I think they cleared out all the wineries in Loudon county, based on the size of their warehouse."

"We took out the walker bodies when we got here," Aaron says, "burned them, and aired the Inn out for a day. "But everything valuable – food, beverages, medicines, guns, ammo – it was all cleared out. At least they left  _some_  of the garden supplies. Fertilizers and insecticides. And we found three bottles of wine. But…uh…we drank all those last night."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Morgan tells him. "We had to take the edge off."

"That's what I told Michonne," Rick says. "But she insisted even one glass was too much for her to be alert on watch."

Daryl tries his damnedest not to look at Michonne when Rick says that. It's not his business if she asked Carol to find a pregnancy test, but he's a little surprised Rick doesn't seem to  _know_  she asked.

"So we need to scavenge and trade," Jesus says. "Amos only wants oil, gas, batteries, ammunition, and medical supplies. I'll go on a supply run tomorrow and gather as much of that sort of thing as I possibly can."

"I'll come with you," Aaron volunteers.

"We need the ammo for  _ourselves_ ," Rosita insists. "I'm sure they have a shitton of it already, the way Rick described their camp."

"But they  _want_  it," Jesus says. "And it will make valuable collateral."

"I'm not so sure we should be arming a camp eight miles from our doorstep," Rosita warns. "What happens when they decide they can just take everything we have?"

"I didn't get the impression Amos was that kind of man," Jesus replies. "He wants to trade, not conquer, If you met him – "

"- Yeah, well,  _if_  I met him, and I lingered too long past that stop sign, it sounds like I'd be dead." Rosita raps her fingertips on the table. "But forget them. We need to talk about these fuckers who attacked our camp. We all know that fire got out from under them, that it was just meant to be distraction and they probably wanted the  _camp_. Now that it's all burned up, any who survived will have moved on looking for  _another_  camp to take." She levels her eyes at Rick. "Which is why I  _told_  you all those signs you left behind were a bad idea."

Michonne comes to the defense of her husband. "They worked, didn't they? Daryl and Carol saw one. They  _found_  us because of them."

Rosita turns her head to Michonne. "Yeah, they  _worked_. Which is why they may work again. In a way we don't  _want_  them to work."

"Tell me where ya left 'em," Daryl says. "And when me and Carol go back to the Hilltop, we'll clear 'em on the way."

"Might be a little late for that," Rosita grumbles.

"If they  _do_  follow the signs," Rick reasons, "they'll follow them to Dead End Winery, not to us. And if they cross that Stop sign…" He shakes his head.

"And what if it's one of our people who crosses the line by mistake?" Carol asks. "Someone who got separated, but sees one of Rick's signs and makes his or her way to the winery?"

"Perhaps I should make a diplomatic journey," Ezekiel suggests. "Have a dialogue with Amos Weatherford. I'd like to meet him personally, since only Rick and those of you in Carol's group has had the pleasure."

"Don't know as I'd call it a  _pleasure_ ," Daryl mutters.

"I could tell him of our concerns," Ezekiel continues. "Describe our people to him so he can hold his fire. Warn him that these attackers might seek out his vineyard."

"Ain't sure he's inclined to be accomodatin'," Daryl says.

"At least I can try," Ezekiel replies.

They continue making plans, until the candles burn down an inch, and the wax pools on the silver circled bottom of the candelabra, and Judith comes stumble-jogging into the dining room, saying, "Sweepy, sweepy. Bedy bed. Unca D weads."

"Seven words," Rick says with a smile. "Longest sentence yet."


	14. Chapter 14

Rick lights the fireplace in the master bedroom suite on the main floor while Judith settles under the covers in the middle of the King-size bed. Daryl wonders how Rick likes Judith sleeping between him and Michonne. He sits down on the bed next to her, with his back against the massive, ornately carved headboard, and swings up his feet.

Rick stops poking the fire and glances over his shoulder. "You mind, Daryl?"

"Nah, I like readin' to 'er." No one had ever read to him.

"I mean your muddy boots. On the bed."

"Oh." Daryl swivels to the side and jerks them off, one by one. They thud against the oriental carpet covering the hardwood floor. "All these rooms got fireplaces and bathrooms and shit?"

"The master suite on each floor has a bathroom," Rick answers. "but the smaller rooms share hall bathrooms. We're on a septic system here, and things still flush if you throw some creek water in the toilets. I found the plans in the study. Gravity's pulling the waste down to the septic tank, but the waste isn't getting pumped from the tank into the leach field without electricity. The tank will fill in a few weeks. We need to figure out how to manually pump the sludge out."

"Sounds like a fun job for Jesus."

Rick chuckles. "The small rooms don't have fireplaces, so in the worst part of winter, people will need to double up in the suites or sleep in the library or living rooms or billiard room. They all have fireplaces."

" _Billiard_  room? That where Colonel Mustard did it with the candlestick?"

Rick shakes his head. "Man, guess how much this place used to cost a night?"

"More'n the monthly payment on my trailer, probably." It had been Merle's trailer, really. It was in Merle's name. But it seemed Daryl was always making the payments, since Merle was always owing his meth dealer money. But Merle said that was the least Daryl could do, because his big brother was generously allowing him to live in the smaller bedroom.

A hardback book hits Daryl solidly in the nose as Judith tries to hand it to him. "Daddy," Judith says in a tone of exasperated authority. "Unca D weads. NOW."

Rick holds up one hand in surrender as he puts the fire poker back. "Okay, okay. I'll stop talking to him and go give Tara a break on watch."

As Daryl rubs the bridge of his nose, he thinks, proudly, that Little Ass Kicker packs quite the punch.

[*]

Jesus ends up claiming the small bedroom next to Aaron's, which has an adjoining door – a compromise that doesn't seem to require much discussion. Enid and Gracie take the next room over, which has a queen bed. Aaron and Jesus push the bed against the wall, so Gracie can sleep on that side without rolling out.

While they're busy with that, Carol takes her stuff to the last unclaimed bedroom – the third floor suite, which has a gold-plated sign out front that reads,  _The Chardonnay Room_. There's nothing particularly  _Chardonnay_  about the room, except a gold color theme. The queen-size bed has a frilly canopy and is littered with tiny, useless pillows.

There's a dusty vanity with a cracked mirror in the corner. The room has its own bathroom, with a free-standing, Victorian-style ceramic tub. She supposes she can mix boiling kettle water with cold creek water for a warm bath, if the tub still drains well. But that's for another day.

Her new room has a fireplace opposite the bed. Carol takes a newspaper-style wine guide off an end table next to the armchair, rips out the pages, and uses them to light the dry wood in the fireplace so she can see better. She turns off her flashlight when the flames catch, puts it on the mantle, and then opens the closet and sets her backpack down beside a partially open suitcase. The hem of a lacy red negligee spills out of the side. Carol crouches down, eases it out, and runs her thumb over the silky material. She thinks of what she once told Lori –  _Ed never let me have nice things_.

"Whoever stayed here before the world ended sure had nice clothes," Michonne says from the open doorway. "They don't fit me, but they might fit you."

"I'll rifle through them later and see if there's anything practical," says Carol, dropping the negligee on top of the suitcase, standing, and walking away from the closet.

[*]

"…They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth," Daryl reads."And rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws."

Judith makes a claw of her little hand, rips it through the air, and shouts, "Woar! Kick 'em ass."

Daryl chuckles. He's not surprised this book doesn't scare her. Judith's seen far worse than the wild things. "Dunno if Max is gonna kick their asses," he tells her, "but we'll see."

[*]

Michonne leans her slender shoulder against the doorframe. "Do you really think Maggie might be alive?"

Carol wraps one hand around the wooden pole that holds up the canopy of the bed, as if she could hold up her own spirit that way. "I  _have_  to."

"Rick doesn't want to hope," Michonne admits. "I think he's  _afraid_  to hope. And I think maybe he's also afraid to think he may have left anyone behind."

"You had no choice," Carol reassures her. "You were under fire, in more ways than one. Even when we got there, Daryl and I couldn't get close enough to see anything."

[*]

Half sitting up and leaned back against Daryl's chest, Judith yawns.

"And Max the king of the wild things was lonely," he reads, gently brushing Judith's hair back from her drooping eyelids, "and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."

What the hell was it with children's books, anyway? He could read 300 pages of a military thriller, people dying left and right, and not feel a damn thing, and then some stupid, simple line like that in a goddamn  _picture book_  would come along and twist his gut all up like a pretzel.

"Then all 'round from 'cross the world, he smelled good things to eat."

Lines like that. No big words, nothing fancy, but it conjures up a dozen memories of Carol cooking, all jumping over each other in his head, until he can almost taste the scent of her mess hall venison drifting from the cooking tent in the old prison yard.

"So he gave up being king of where the wild things are."

[*]

Michonne's eyes flit to the armchair in the corner of Carol's room and then to the crackling flames in the fireplace and finally back to Carol. "Did you get that thing I asked for?"

Carol nods. She returns to her backpack in the closet, from which she removes a box containing a pregnancy test. "I have two more, if you need them." She extends it to Michonne. "Does Rick know?"

" _I_  don't even know." Michonne takes a step back into the hallway and slips the box into an inside pocket of a black leather jacket she must have picked up on the road. "Thanks, and don't mention anything to Rick. I haven't said anything yet."

"You should," Carol tells her.

"I'm going to take the test first. He doesn't need this stress right now."

"And  _you_  don't need to bear this stress alone," Carol insists.

"Thanks for the test." Michonne vanishes from the hallway.

[*]

Daryl looks down at Judith, whose eyes are completely closed. "…And sailed back over a year," he whispers. "And in and out of weeks, and through a day."

Judith's little chest is rising and falling now, and he can hear the soft sounds of her rhythmic breathing, but as long as he's here, he might as well finish the book. "And into the night of his very own room. Where he found his supper waitin' for him." When he hears the slight hitch in his own voice, he clears his throat. "And it was still hot."

Daryl closes the book gently and sets it on the nightstand. He dries his itchy eyes – damn allergies - with two fingertips. And then he eases out ever so carefully from underneath Judith and settles her head on a pillow before tucking the covers up around her.

He scoops up his discarded boots in one hand and tiptoes to the end of the bed, where he reclaims his bow and backpack. Quietly, he slips them onto his shoulders, watching Judith to make sure she doesn't wake. When he looks up, he finds Michonne standing in the doorway, smiling. "Thank you," she tells him. "Carol's in the Chardonnay room. Last bedroom on the third floor, at the end of the hallway."

Daryl wonders if that means Carol told Michonne he's rooming with her. He doesn't ask, in case that's  _not_  what it means. Instead he nods, mumbles, "G'nite," and makes his way upstairs.


	15. Chapter 15

Two drawers of the gold oak dresser in the Chardonnay room are taken up by a man's clothing, but the other four are claimed by a woman. Carol will be able to use the woman's jeans and the man's t-shirts, but the skirts and dresses are impractical, and she won't wear the low-cut blouses, because she doesn't want any hot, spent brass ejecting from her gun into her cleavage.

The woman who was staying here sure packed a lot of sexy lingerie. Carol's settled on the most practical of the night clothes – a pair of forest green silk pajama pants and a matching short sleeve top with five soft buttons down the middle. It's pretty, but it's not  _sexy_ , and it's comfortable. She checks the sock drawer now and finds crotchless panties, garters, fishnet stockings, four pairs of panty hose, and only three really useful pairs of socks.

"Fancy digs."

Carol quickly slides the dresser drawer shut and looks at Daryl standing in the doorframe. "Well, it  _is_  the  _Chardonnay_  room."

His eyes flit down over the green silk that covers her legs. "You look - "

"- Ridiculous," she finishes for him.

"Nah. Just…diff'rn."

She smiles lightly. "Well, how often does a girl get to feel like a princess in this world?" Her tone is light, joking, or at least she tries to make it  _sound_  that way, but the news of the day has taken all the levity out of her.

He studies the boots he's holding in his left hand. He has a flashlight in his right. His pack is slung over one shoulder, and his crossbow on the other. She waits for him to invite himself in, but he just stands there.

"Well…uh…" he says eventually. "Call me if'n ya need me. Just gonna be in that livin' room at the end of the hallway." He ducks his head and scuttles away.

[*]

Daryl was hoping she was going to invite him in, but he felt like his ears were growing red with the waiting.

He drops his pack and boots beside the couch and puts his glowing flashlight on the end table, positioned up so that it casts a kaleidoscopic pattern on the high white stucco ceiling. He sets his crossbow on the seat of the armchair. The couch looks pretentious, with those curved wooden legs, but it's probably comfortable enough. Firm.

Why didn't she invite him in? Hell, it didn't have to be sex, but he just… He sighs and looks at the built-in bar between the two bookcases and wishes it hadn't been cleaned out of booze. Then he snaps out his sleeping bag on the couch, plops his ass down on top of it, and peels off his sweaty socks.

There's a deck of cards on the coffee table, next to a hand-carved chess board, and, on the other side of that, a book about antique rifles. If he can't sleep, he supposes he can find a way to keep himself busy, something other than worrying about Carol.

[*]

Carol's room is dark now, except for the starlight seeping through the lace of the curtains and the red and orange embers that still glow in the dampened fireplace. The weight of all those lost people bears down on her heart like an anvil. Her tears are silent, but they are  _not_  few.

She swipes at her wet cheeks. Why did Daryl just keep on walking like that? Couldn't he tell that she  _needed_  him? What does she have to do, wear a neon sign around her neck? Why does she always have to be the one to go to him?

She sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed and sighs. Carol walks quietly to the door, her bare feet almost soundless on the thin area rug. When she opens it, Daryl stumbles sideways inside, his head turned, as though he had his ear pressed to the wood.

"What are you doing?" she asks in surprise.

"'M sorry," he mutters, gaining his footing and standing up. His shoulders are humbly slumped. "'S just listenin'."

"Listening?"

"Not in a pervy way! Just…wanted to make sure ya weren't cryin'."

"Well, I  _was_  crying." She can feel the dampness still trapped in her eyes, and he must see it, even in the dim light, because he's looking intently at her.

"But ya ain't no more?" he asks.

"No. Not at the moment. Do you want to come in?"

"Want me to?"

"Yes," she answers, relief unwinding muscles she didn't know were tightened. "I want you to."

Daryl walks inside and clicks the door shut softly behind him.

It's then that Carol realizes she's never actually invited him into  _her_  room before. And when she has come to him in his tent, it's always been for sex. He must assume…"I don't want sex," she says bluntly. "I mean, not  _tonight_. It's just, with everything we learned today, I - "

"- 'S a'ight. We can just…uh…whatever. Sleep?"

"And maybe cuddle?" She feels strangely vulnerable asking for that, far more vulnerable than she felt the last time she crawled naked into his sleeping bag. "You know, like we do after? Just without the before this time."

"Mhmhm. 'S fine. Cuddlin' ain't so bad."

She winces.

"Nah," he hastens. "Not what I meant. Meant…I like holdin' ya. Close. Even when we ain't fuckin'." Now he winces at his own word choice. "Mean…havin' sex."

Carol walks to the bed. "Which side do you want?"

He looks at the door and then looks over her shoulder cautiously at the window, as if he's not sure which is the more dangerous side of the bed if he needs to get between her and a threat. "Door."

She walks over to the window side of the bed, and he more cautiously approaches his chosen side. He's wearing the same clothes he had on all day, except for the jacket and outer shirt, which he's shed to reveal a lightly stained, tan t-shirt with ripped off sleeves. "Why don't you drop your pants?" she asks. When she sees the confusion on his face, she clarifies, "I mean get comfortable. Sleep in your skivvies. It's surprisingly warm under this thick quilt." She's thought of shedding the PJ bottoms herself, but they aren't nearly as warm as those thick canvass pants he's got on.

"Mhmhm," he agrees. He drops his pants, and his belt buckle clanks on the floor. There's a rip in the left leg of his faded black boxers, and Carol makes a note to throw them out when he's not looking and shove a few better pairs in his backpack. There were plenty of boxer briefs in the dresser that look to be about his size. Besides, she likes the way that boxer brief style hugs his ass. She's seen him in them twice.

When Daryl pulls his t-shirt over his head, his arm muscles ripple, and Carol admires the contours of his chest before he crawls under the quilt.

"Spoons?" he asks, because they always spoon together after sex. But the question, in his gruff voice and coming out of his often-foul mouth, makes her smile.

She crawls in next to him. "Spaghetti tongs," she teases.

"I…uh….dunno that one."

"How about we do mixing cups?"

"Uh…dunno that one neither."

"No? Not up on your cuddle positions? What about the potato peeler?"

"Uh…" He huffs through his nose. "Yer pullin' my leg, ain't ya?"

She chuckles and pushes him against his shoulder until he lies on his back. Carol settles her head on his bare chest, wraps one of her legs around one of his, and feels the frim strength of his thigh on the inside of hers. Her small hand settles on his ribcage, just above the waistband of his boxers.

Daryl wedges one arm under his own head and wraps the other around her. "Think this one's broken, three-pronged whisk that ain't stirred right for years, but damn if Mama's gonna throw it out."

Carol snorts.

[*]

Darryl's not sure if he's supposed to talk while they cuddle, but she hasn't been, not for a while now, and he doesn't have much worth saying. So he just lies there silently, wishing his dick would stop twitching. There's just something about those silky pajamas wrapped around his bare leg and the feel of her firm breast pressed against his side that's turning him on something terrible.

His arousal fades when he feels a hot tear drop to his naked chest.

"Ya a'ight?" he asks, even though he knows it's a damn stupid thing to ask, but he figures it would be even stupider to say nothing.

She shifts a little against him, and he raises his hand to the back of her neck, where he toys gently with the short strands of her silver hair. "Gonna find Maggie," he assures her, even though he doesn't believe it, not really.

Carol sniffles, slides her hand from his side, and quickly, roughly wipes her tears away. Her fingers are damp against his ribs when she returns her hand.

"Gonna find Henry and Siddiq. Dwight and Sherry, too." He tries to think of who else she might have been fond of. Who was that chick with the stern face, that archer from the Kingdom, the one that told Carol she was a great Councilwoman? "Dianne." And then there was that butter-faced ex-Savior, the soft talker, who helps Carol with the cooking. "Alden." The big guy that makes Daryl think of Santa Claus, who's a lot smarter than he sounds or looks, and who makes Carol laugh. "Jerry." He swallows. "Gonna find 'em."

Her fingertips curl on his ribcage. She doesn't say anything for so long that he wonders if his pathetic attempt at comfort did any good at all. Finally, she speaks. "We're the only two people here who have known each other since the start."

"Whatchaya mean?"

"Everyone at that first camp, the quarry camp - they're all gone now."

"Rick," he says.

"Yeah, but he wasn't there from the start. He came weeks after we settled there."

Carol's right. He knew her before he knew Rick, before he knew Maggie, before he knew Michonne. She was the first person he met at that quarry camp. He and Merle had their own little camp not far away, and he came upon her doing laundry in the lake when he crashed through the woods pursing a deer. She was the first person he met - and the last original member of that camp who's still alive. He threads his fingers through her hair and whispers, "Damn."

"I've known you since the end of time," she says quietly.

It's like a line from a children's book – haunting in its truthful simplicity. His fingertips still in her hair. A strange feeling winds its way around his heart, a tickling vine, at once bitter and sweet.

She squirms a little closer and shifts her head more toward the center of his chest. He drags his other arm out from behind his head and wraps that one around her, too.

"Goodnight, Daryl."

"'Nite," he says quietly, and then, a moment later, quieter still: "M'girl."

**[*]**

Daryl dreams of playing Risk in the prison during those quiet months before the collapse. The gameboard lies spread over a metal mess hall table, and a sea of red, black, green, and yellow plastic armies swarm the globe.

Carl Grimes, looking through two good eyes, slides his men forward onto one of his father's countries and says, "I'm attacking Yakutsk with three."

"Yakutsk?" Glenn asks. "Is that even a real country?"

"Ain't none of 'em real countries no more," Daryl says.

Rick bends over his little yellow soldiers in Yakutsk as he scoops up two red dice. "To arms!" he tells the playing pieces. "To arms!"

It takes Carol shaking him awake for Daryl to realize that the cry he hears really  _is_  Rick's, and that the words he's yelling really  _are_  "To arms! To arms!"


	16. Chapter 16

The bedroom door slams open. Carol, still in her silky green pajamas, and slapping a 20-round magazine into her AR-15, runs into the hallway. Daryl, shirtless, squeezes past her, his pants pulled on and buttoned at the top, but his zipper undone, belt loose, and buckle clanging as he bolts to the living room where he left his bow.

Enid emerges from the room next door holding the handgun Rosita gave her yesterday. Inside the room, Gracie is sobbing. "Get back inside," Carol orders her, "and guard the kids. I'll send Nabila and Judith and H.G. up here. Lock down. Barricade in."

Enid nods, and when Carol begins to run down the stairs, she sees Nabila already running up them from the second floor with a wailing H.G. cradled in her arms. Judith, looking no more alarmed than a school child participating in a routine fire drill, clomps up on all fours behind her. "Enid's room," Carol tells Nabila as she runs past them.

When Carol spills out onto the front porch, everyone is armed but in varying states of dress. Ezekiel looks considerably less regal than usual in a pair of gray sweat pants. His dark, bare back is marked with a ragged scar he earned in the War against the Saviors. Michonne is in a pair of pink athletic shorts and a black tank top. Her drawn katana glints in the rays of the just-now-rising sun. Rosita must have slept in her clothes, because her tight brown army pants are fully buttoned and zipped, and her crop top is slightly wrinkled. She's had time to throw on her combat boots, but she's missing her usual gloves and cap. Jesus dons only a pair of red silk boxers covered with little gold hearts. Aaron wears one of the thick, white, fluffy robes that hangs on the back of the door in the hall bathroom. It's tightly cinched at the front, and there may be nothing under it. Tara has her jeans on, but they're unzipped, and her t-shirt is on inside out and backwards. Rick is fully dressed, probably because he was on watch with Morgan.

Carol takes up a position on the porch between Michonne and Rick, while Daryl, loading his bow, charges out the door and falls in place on the other side of Michonne. He looks down the line. "Where's Morgan?" Michonne nods toward the watchtower, where Morgan stands studying the dirt road through a pair of binoculars.

Rick's walkie talkie crackles, and he holds it in a position so that everyone can hear.

"They just left the wine tasting room," comes Morgan's voice through the walkie talkie. "They're back in the pick-up. They're head this way. Seven men, I think. Maybe eight."

_Ten to eight. Good odds_ , Carol thinks as she lifts her rifle, steadies it against her shoulder, and closes one eye to stare down the sight.

A large black pick-up truck comes barreling into view up the narrow dirt road. Four men stand in the bed, each with one hand grasping the spotlight rack at the back of the cab. Three of them are holding AR-10s. Despite the heavy arms, the pick-up is flying a white flag, and Carol recognizes one of the men – who has his hand on the butt of a holstered handgun - as the one who rifled through their things in the pick-up. Amos's right hand man. Javier.

"Hold your fire!" she yells and lowers her own rifle.

Rick must recognize Javier, too, because he echoes her command into his walkie talkie for Morgan.

When the truck jerks to a stop not far from the front porch, Rick points his revolver down, holds up one hand in a sign of peace, and walks down the porch stairs, saying, "I sure hope you're just coming to trade."

The four men leap down from the bed of the pick-up, and two more exit the extended cab. The driver and front seat passenger remain in place. Javier marches forward but stops suddenly, one foot frozen in front of the other, when he sees Rosita on the porch. His eyes flit over her tied off shirt, down her tightly clad legs, and back to her face.

" _Are_  you coming to trade?" Rick asks.

Javier tears his eyes from Rosita, completes his steps, and stops just a few inches from Rick. "We've come to tell you to clean up your own fucking messes!" Rick jerks his face back from the spittle that flies from Javier's mouth, but the rest of his body doesn't flinch.

Javier strides back to the pick-up, jerks open the passenger door, and yanks down a man whose hands are bound behind himself with thick rope. Javier drags the prisoner by one arm and forces him to stumble forward before sweeping him roughly at the ankles. The prisoner collapses to his knees on the cracked stone walkway that leads to the stairs. "Do you know this man?" Javier demands.

"Holy shit!" Rosita curses. She clatters down the porch stairs and comes to a stop next to Rick. She points to the black and green Celtic tattoo that crawls its way out of the prisoner's shirt and up his neck. "It's one of the men who attacked the Hilltop. The one I saw shoot Eugene!"

"Well," Javier snarls, "apparently you pendejos left  _road signs_  directing them to  _our_  winery!" He grits his teeth and hisses through them. "You're just lucky we got them all before they killed any of us. Or it would be your blood for ours." Abruptly, he draws his 9 mm handgun, thumbs back the hammer, and squeezes the trigger.

Carol's breath stops.

Blood splatters Rick's blue shirt, Rosita's left cheek, and the stone walkway.

The prisoner slumps face first to the ground. Blood and brain ooze out of the back of his exploded head, and Carol breathes again.

Javier gestures to the gore with the barrel of his handgun. "This is  _your_  fucking mess! So now  _you_  clean it up!" He slams his revolver back into his holster and strides away from the body, toward the pick-up, where he paces back and forth as if he's trying to get control of his rage. Finally, he turns around and walks close to the porch again. "Amos wants a bounty for taking out  _your_  trash. A peace offering. Two more of those battery jumper packs."

"Two?" Rosita asks. "We only have three."

"And a quart of that oil," Javier continues. "Two tubes of antibiotic ointment. That big bottle of iburprofen I saw in your truck. And uh…" He runs a hand over his mouth. "One of those pregnancy tests."

"Pregnancy tests?" Rick murmurs.

MIchonne catches Carol's eye and does that thing she can do with just her eyeball – where she sort of raises it and warns you in one look not to say a  _thing_. She obviously hasn't spoken to Rick about the potential pregnancy yet. Carol wonders if she's even  _taken_  the test.

Rosita wipes the prisoner's blood from her cheek with her fingertips and levels her eyes at Javier. "You knock somebody up, Casanova?"

"It's for my grandniece."

Rosita looks Javier up and down, drawing her eyes from his dusty brown leather rancher boots, up his dark blue jeans, past his large silver belt buckle, over the broad chest beneath his red flannel shirt, and to his tan face. "You don't look old enough to be a granduncle."

"I'm not. She's only eighteen, and the father is twenty. But before you judge, consider that her mother and father were both lost in the refugee uprising. She has no parents to guide her."

"She has an uncle."

"Well," Javier says, "I'll see that she's properly married and cared for."

"Are you going to hold a shotgun on the boyfriend for the entire wedding?" Rosita asks.

"If I  _have_  to," Javier replies, and Carol can't quite tell if he's joking. Either way, she wishes Rosita would stop antagonizing him. They need to make friends with these people.

But Rosita doesn't stop. "Eighteen's a little young for marriage and babies, and your niece should probably learn to protect herself."

"She's not bad with a rifle, but it doesn't hurt to have a man on your side. As for her age, just think how old your mother was when she had you."

"She was thirty-two," Rosita replies coolly.

"Well, sure, because you were the baby. But how old was she when she had your oldest brother?"

Rosita rolls her eyes. "How do you even know I had a brother?"

"Because you had five."

Rosita's eyes aren't rolling now. "How in the hell do you know  _that_?"

"Because, Rosita Espinosa…" Rosita's mouth falls open slightly at the sound of her own name, and everyone on the porch exchanges glances. "I went to Texas A&M with your brother Juan. You and I met once, at his wedding in Fort Worth. You were a sweet, sweet sixteen."

"Alejandro?" Rosita asks in disbelief.

" _Javier_. Alejandro was mi hermano. Another one of the groomsmen. Of course it would be  _him_  you noticed. I was…uh…un poco gordito back then."

"Oh…yeah." Rosita smirks. "I remember you now. That one button of your tux was really straining to stay closed. I think you lost it during the toast." Rosita looks him over again. "But you've  _clearly_ gotten in shape since then."

Javier smiles, and when he does, his face looks considerably less stern, almost boyish. "Well, I moved to Virginia and got into farm management. A decade of that and then an apocalypse? It has a way of toning you up."

While Rosita and Javier continue to converse, Rick returns to the porch. Michonne slides her katana into the sheath on her back. Daryl shoulders his crossbow, buckles his belt, and zips up. The skin of his shoulder blades is flushed pink, and Carol suspects that's because the eyes of some of the people on the porch keep flitting to the old lashes and scars on his back.

"What do you think?" Rick asks.

"I say we give them what they asked for," Carol replies, "and consider ourselves lucky that's  _all_  they're asking for. We did lead danger to their doorstep."

"All in favor?" Rick looks up and down the line, which has relaxed its weapons.

Everyone raises a reluctant hand.

"I'll go get the supplies," Carol says.

When she returns to the porch with the supplies, she hands Daryl an undershirt. He mutters a thanks and pulls it on quickly.

Rosita and Javier are still talking, though they've switched to an animated Spanish. The words fly so fast between them that Carol wonders how they manage to understand each other. They're loud, too, and she would think they were arguing if it weren't for the fact that they both laugh once.

When the bounty is paid, and Javier and his men have left, Rosita mounts the porch stairs and fills everyone in on what she learned from him: "The attackers crossed their stop sign on foot and tossed a Molotov cocktail over the fence into a hay bale, just like they did with us, except they couldn't see well enough through the ivy on the stands to take out the watchmen, and the watchmen took out  _five_  of them. The others started fleeing, but by then the alarm was raised and the winery's militia chased them down and killed four more. The camp put the fire out easily because they've had more rain out this way, and it hasn't been nearly as dry. The hay bale also wasn't far from one of their wells. They lost the hay, but nothing else."

"Did they take anyone alive?" Rick asks.

"Just the one." Rosita nods to the dead body Javier left on the walkway. "And he's not so lively anymore."

"They should have left him alive," Michonne says, "so we could interrogate him."

"They  _did_  interrogate him," Rosita responds. "He said he was all that was left of their group, and they didn't have a permanent camp anywhere. They were looking to claim one."

"That's assuming he wasn't just telling them what he thought they wanted to hear," Carol says.

"Maybe," Rosita tells her, "but they have a tracker. He walked their trail and found where both of their trucks were parked on the highway. The attackers came down the dirt road on foot, under cover of night. The trucks were still on the shoulder of the highway, and there were no tracks indicating anyone had taken off. So if there  _are_  more, they weren't at Dead End Winery. None of those men got away."

"Does Javier think Amos will be satisfied with the bounty?" Carol asks. She understands them wanting payment for their trouble, but she doesn't want to end up extorted, to be serfs for the Dead End Winery camp like they once were for the Saviors. "That it will be enough to keep the peace between us?"

"Well," Rosita replies, "I pointed out that they benefited from having those men led to their doorstep, because none of their own people were hurt. They lost a hay bale, but they gained two more working trucks, ten more guns, and a lot of extra ammo, plus whatever food they pulled from their packs. And there were three five-gallon gas cans in the trucks, too."

"It appears I no longer need to embark on that diplomatic mission," Ezekiel says. He half bows his head to Rosita. "And I guess I know who our trade representative should be henceforth."

"I hope she likes bartering with psychopaths," Jesus says.

"You think Javier is a psychopath?" Rosita asks him.

"You didn't notice the cold way he shot that man in the back of the head, without warning, when he was bound and defenseless?"

"The man who shot Eugene, you mean?" Rosita's head bobs with the force of her annoyance. "The man whose people burned our  _home_  to the  _ground_?" Her voice rises. "The man whose people planned to kill everyone at Dead End Winery and take it over?  _That_  man?" Rosita huffs through her nose. "Javier's no more a psychopath than the rest of us." She struts down the stairs to the body Javier left behind, kicks it hard with the toe of her black combat boot, and then spits on it before walking to the watch stand to relieve Morgan.

Jesus sighs. "Guess I'll be the one to bury the body, then.  _Someone_  has to."

"Just burn the trash, Ghandi," Tara says. She turns, yanks the screen door open with a creak, and goes inside.

"She's right, you know," Aaron tells him.

"Et tu, Brute?" Jesus asks.

"While I admire your generous heart," Aaron replies, "sometimes you can be a little…"

"A little what?" Jesus asks.

"A little….you know."

"I  _don't_  know."

Aaron shakes his head and follows Tara inside.

"A little bit  _what_?" Jesus asks as he goes after Aaron.

Ezekiel chuckles as he, too, disappears into the house.

Carol rests a hand on the porch railing. "We've got a problem, Rick. They never should have made it up that road."

"Damn right," Daryl agrees. "Need us one of 'em spikey things like they got. Pops tires."

"I'm working on it," Rick says with frustration. "I'm working on the fence, too. I'm working on the septic system. I'm working on a hundred things. Last thing I need is one more thing!"

Michonne eyes him warily as he thunders inside.

Daryl raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment on Rick's frustration. "Gonna get packed up," he tells Carol. "So's we can head out to the Hilltop."

She nods, but she lingers on the porch with Michonne. "Did you take the test?" she asks when they're alone.

Michonne leans back against the rail next to Carol, close enough to talk in a low whisper. "It was positive."

"I take it you haven't told Rick?"

"Not yet. I'm waiting until things get a little more settled first."

"He'll be happy," Carol assures her. "He will. He dotes on Judith, and she's not e-" Carol falls silent.

"I know," Michonne tells her. "He told me. A long time ago. And Carl's gone. Rick has no living biological children of his own. And any other situation, I'm sure he'd be thrilled. But…this isn't exactly the world to be bringing a child into."

"Maybe not," Carol agrees. "But it's the only world we've got."


	17. Chapter 17

As Daryl struts toward his motorcycle, Carol calls after him, "We're taking Rick's pick-up. The big one with the extended cab. We need room for survivors and loot."

He turns to face her. "Can ride behind ya on my bike."

"Daryl…the extra gas. The wear and tear. The noise of the motorcycle engine. " The fact that she enjoys his company and she can't if they're driving separate vehicles. "The possibility of us getting separated, or of one of us needing to maneuver while the other shoots…I could go on."

He scowls, and as he walks toward the pick-up, he grumbles, "Now that yer m'girl, this mean I got to get nagged all the damn time?"

"Pookie," she says with a smile, "I nagged you  _before_  I was your girl."

He huffs and throws his backpack into the bed of the pick-up. "Yer drivin' this time."

[*]

When they get to the dirt road that leads to Dead End Winery, Daryl gets out of the truck to study the sign of the attackers. He goes down the dirt road a few yards, then back up to the adjoining paved highway and forward. Carol watches him from the truck, and whenever he gets a fifth of a mile up the road, she quietly rolls it forward and parks again.

It's fascinating watching him work. Fascinating…and strangely arousing, like now, when he crouches down on the asphalt, and the muscles of his legs flex beneath his frayed, gray work pants, and he silently, patiently scours the shoulder. He stands and walks back to the truck, and she rolls down the window. "This is where they parked," he tells her. "One set of tracks go down the embankment. Gonna check 'em out."

She switches off the engine as he disappears down the embankment toward the tree line and then vanishes into the woods. Carol slides out and readies her rifle. She hears the faint sound of distant growling, and then nothing.

"You all right?" she calls.

"'M fine!"

A moment later, Daryl emerges from the woods dragging a walker by its ankles. His arrow is still in its head. Carol eases herself down the embankment to the grassy crevice as he drops the walker's ankles. The creature is freshly turned – within the last few hours - and its face has been half shot off.

"Looks like Dead End's tracker shot 'em," Daryl explains, "thought he got the brain, or didn't care if he did, and just left 'em. Bastard turned and wandered off in the woods a bit. Was feastin' on a dead possum. Their tracker's right, though. No sign anyone took off. Only two sets of truck tracks."

"But they didn't search this one?" Carol asks as she crouches down and pulls a handgun off the walker's belt. She stands, unloads the gun, counts the bullets, and reloads it before putting it in her waistband at the small of her back. "It's curious how few walkers we've seen around here," she says. "There's this one, because the man was shot here recently, but I haven't seen any live ones since we've been here. The ones we saw at Hillcrest Vineyards were all shot already."

"Maybe the Dead End camp cleaned most of 'em out the area. And maybe there weren't many to begin with. Ain't exactly a bustling metropolis." Daryl crouches down to rifle through the dead walker's pockets. The lobes of his ears grow pink as he pulls out two foil condom packets and slides them into the pocket of his black leather vest, which he wears over a long-sleeve gray canvass shirt. He rolls the walker over and pulls a sheet of notebook paper out of his back pocket, unfolds it, and says, "Asshole had shit handwritin'. Can ya read this?" He stands and hands it to her.

It takes Carol awhile to make out the cursive. "It looks like a letter. It's addressed to someone called 'General' at Norfolk headquarters. It's very apologetic and says they aborted their mission to seize the ocean camp when they were sprayed with a blinding biological weapon. They retreated with a captive."

"Ocean camp?" Daryl asks. "Think that means Oceanside?"

"Could be. They had those industrial mosquito control sprayers."

"Damn. Them ladies took 'em  _down_."

"And sent them our way, it seems. He says they tortured information out of their captive and learned about another camp south of Alexandria – that would be us, I suppose - but they had to abort that mission, too, when they lost nine men to gunfire and the camp was burned beyond use. And then it says they found evidence that we were moving on to our outpost at Dead End Winery instead. I guess they assumed it was already an established camp of ours. He says the remaining ten men seized it and then gives the address." She looks down at the man's body. "He must have written it while he was waiting with the trucks. A bit presumptuous."

"Ten." Daryl scratches his cheek. "Javier says they killed ten, countin' that one he shot at the Inn. So that's all of 'em."

"Except whoever's at their headquarters in Norfolk," Carol replies.

"Fuck."

They jog up the embankment to the truck. Daryl seizes the map from the glove compartment and spreads it out on the hood. He stabs his finger on Norfolk, and Carol measures the distance. "200 miles," she says. "That's a  _long_  way. I think we'll be safe from them here. Maybe. Since they apparently didn't know where this contingent was going, other than Oceanside."

"Headquarters might go lookin' when they don't hear from 'em, though."

"We have to make clearing those signs Rick left our priority. Did he give you a list of the locations?"

"Yeah," Daryl replies. "We – "

Carol slides her AR-15 from off her shoulder and levels it at the sound of an approaching engine. Daryl readies his crossbow. They relax when they see Javier standing in the bed and grasping the spotlight rail. The pick-up jerks to a stop several feet behind their truck, and Javier vaults over the side to the shoulder.

The driver, a handsome blonde man with light crow's feet crinkling the skin around his soft blue eyes, steps down from the driver's side and reaches for the handgun in his brown suede holster. Javier holds out his left hand in a  _stop_  gesture. "Easy, Mason," he says. "They're the Hillcrest people."

Mason takes his hand off his gun. Daryl and Carol lower their weapons and stroll over to the two men. Mason, who reminds Carol a little of a late 1990s Robert Redford, tips his dark brown cowboy hat to Carol, and says, "Howdy, ma'am." Then he reaches in the front pocket of his blue denim shirt to fish out a cigarette. Daryl looks at the cigarette longingly as Mason lights up and leans back against the grill of his truck.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Javier asks.

"Findin' what ya didn't," Daryl tells him. He points down the embankment at the body.

"You missed one?" Javier asks Mason.

Mason exhales a long stream of cigarette smoke and then speaks in a syrupy drawl that is softer than a Georgia accent. "I didn't miss  _him_. But I reckon I must have missed the brain if he turned."

"And you didn't search him?" Javier asks.

"I planned to after I moved the first truck. Came back with Earl to get the second truck, but that fellah was gone. I figured he just turned and wandered off. Which it appears he did."

Javier jogs down the embankment to examine the body more closely. "Already searched 'em," Daryl yells down, but Javier ignores him and begins to rifle through the man's pockets.

While Javier's busy with his fruitless task, Carol asks Daryl for Rick's list and returns to the hood of their truck to mark the locations on the map.

[*]

Javier is taking his sweet time finding nothing. "Spare one?" Daryl asks, nodding to Mason's cigarette.

Mason picks a fleck of tobacco off his tongue and flicks it. "What'll you give me for the pleasure?"

"Uh…got uh…um…" Daryl flails to think of something worthwhile in his pack, and then remembers what he took off the body. "Condoms."

Mason's laugh is like the low rumble of thunder that comes just before a larger roar. "I'm not sure my boys swim well enough for me to be concerned about that. And unfortunately I don't have a woman at the moment." He looks admiringly at Carol, who is a few yards away folding up the map on the hood of their truck. "Looks like you might have more use for them than I do."

"Keep yer goddamn eyes off 'er," Daryl growls.

Mason chuckles as if he thinks Daryl is a puppy whose bark is worse than his bite. He slides his fingers, the tips of which are black with oil, into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette, which he extends to Daryl. Daryl doesn't want to take a gift from a man who just had his eyes all over his girl, but damn does he want a smoke. So he snatches the cigarette from Mason's hand without breaking eye contact. Mason smiles indulgently, fishes into the back pocket of his Levi jeans, and slides out a matchbook. Holding his own cigarette between his teeth, he strikes a match.

Daryl leans in and accepts the light. "Thanks," he mutters around the cigarette as he leans back against the grill of Mason's truck and inhales. The nicotine buzz strikes him instantly. Daryl hasn't come across any smokable cigarettes for almost a month now – they all crumble to pieces these days - but he doesn't expect it to hit him that hard. He blinks.

Mason chuckles. "Strong, ain't it? I roll 'em myself. Virginia was tobacco country, long 'fore it was wine country. Tobacco still grows better, but my Pa won't let us use much of the land for it."

"Yer  _pa_? Yer daddy's  _Amos_?"

Mason nods.

"Hell. How  _old_  is he?" Mason looks to be in his late fifties.

"Seventy-nine. I'm the oldest of ten siblings from two mamas. Two of my siblings already lived and worked on the vineyard with their families. I came back after the Epidemic started. So did two of my sisters and their families. My niece Caitlyn's mama, my baby sister Geraldine? I guess she's dead?"

"Dunno," Daryl says.

"Caitlyn was in y'all's camp though?"

"Yeah. Don't know nothin' 'bout what happened to her mamma. Sorry."

Mason shrugs. "I just figured all the rest of my kin was dead. But then your Rick Grimes showed up talking about Caitlyn. Makes me wonder is all."

"You're Dead End's tracker?" Daryl asks.

"That I am. You're Hillcrest's tracker, I gather? You found that one easily." He points down the embankment, where Javier is done the walker and now making his way up the hill. "Where'd you learn?"

"Just huntin'," Daryl says. "Growin' up."

"I learned in the Border Patrol. Hunting wetbacks for twenty-five years."

Javier comes to as top before them and looks at Mason coolly. "Hunting people who were just trying to survive and feed their families."

"And the  _coyotes_ ," Mason says. "Who were just trying to rape and rob those people."

Carol walks over to join the men, and Mason gives her a nod and a smile.

"Did you find any weapons on the body?" Javier asks.

"Just a handgun," Carol answers.

"We'll take it," Javier says.

"Finders, keepers," Daryl tells him.

"Mason killed him," Javier says firmly. "We deserve the spoils."

"Finders, keepers," Daryl repeats, more thinly this time.

"Killers, keepers," Javier insists.

"Let it go, Javier," Mason says. "God knows they need it more than we do."

Javier frowns but drops the subject.

"We also found this." Carol hands the letter to Javier.

He reads it over, his jaw growing tighter with each line. "So you may have drawn  _more_  to our doorstep?" Javier shouts. "Fucking fantastic!"

He hands the letter to Mason, who smokes casually as he reads it, as if he's reading the morning newspaper.

"Their headquarters never got this letter," Carol tells Javier. "They don't know where their men are. The last they knew, they were headed to Oceanside. It's a camp we traded with, but, like you, they don't allow strangers past a certain line. That camp doesn't know we went to Dead End, and Daryl and I are headed out now to destroy all the signs Rick left mentioning it."

Mason hands the letter back to Javier without comment. Javier grips the paper tightly, balling it slightly, and waves it in Daryl's face. "If a single one of our people dies because of you," he hisses, "if they lose an arm or a leg – whatever happens - Amos will take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. So clean up your fucking mess!" He slams the notepaper hard against Daryl's chest. Daryl takes the blow by rooting his heels, and then he catches the paper with one hand when Javier lets go.

"Settle down, Javier," Mason tells him. "These things have a way of working themselves out."

"Like the refugee uprising worked itself out?" Javier glares at him. "I lost my brother. And my sister-in-law. You lost  _nothing_."

"We're  _all_  family now," Mason replies. "Every one of those people who died was part of my family, too. So let's not measure wounds like dicks. And let's not forget who  _found_  the refugees. Let's not forget who brought the wolves in among the sheep."

Javier's face tightens, and a look of mixed anger and guilt spreads across his features. He paces away along the gravel of the shoulder, and then paces back and forth across the roadway.

"Count to ten," Mason mutters beneath his breath.

Considerably calmed, Javier walks back. "While you're out taking care of the signs," he asks Carol, "can you try to find some prenatal vitamins for my niece?"

"I will," she says. "Though I guess we better go back and tell Rick what we learned before we set out."

"I'll tell him for you." Javier reaches for the letter Daryl still holds. "I need to go pay a visit anyway."

"Wasn't Amos satisfied with the bounty?" Carol asks as Daryl reluctantly hands over the letter.

"He's satisfied. But…uh…I had a watch Rosita's brother gave me as a groomsman's gift all those years ago. I thought she might like to have it. As a memento of him. So…" He shrugs. "I thought I'd bring it to her."

"Uh-huh," Mason says. "Good luck with that, Romeo."

"Ándele, old man!" Javier barks. He walks to the passenger side door of their truck.

Mason grounds out his cigarette beneath the heel of his steel-tipped, snakeskin cowboy boot and extends his hand to Daryl. "Mason Weatherford. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Daryl shakes. "Daryl Dixon. Thanks for the smoke."

"There's more where that came from if you bring me back a little something from your journey in exchange. All this damn wine. I sure could use a beer."

Daryl nods. "See what I can do."

Mason turns to Carol. "And your name, ma'am?"

"Carol."

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Dixon." He tips his hat to her and walks around to the driver's side.

Daryl blows out a stream of smoke from his cigarette and looks out of the corner of his eye at Carol, but she doesn't say anything. She's smiling, though - that soft, happy smile she gets when some corny joke of her own has amused her.


	18. Chapter 18

Daryl lounges with his chair pushed back, his muddy boots on the dash, and the map open on his lap as Carol drives. In the rearview mirror, she watches Javier and Mason turn back toward the vineyards, a white flag flying from their pick-up as they prepare to bring the letter to Rick.

If her people can keep trouble from their trading partner's doorstep, Carol thinks, this will be a good place to settle. Though the Hilltop itself was remote, it was situated a lot closer to the former population centers of northern Virginia: fifteen miles from D.C., and eleven miles from the seat of a county that had once been home to a million people. They'd settled there because it existed, because it  _was_  settled, but if they had instead been building a camp from scratch, like wagon-trail pioneers, they probably couldn't find a much better one than Virginia wine country. Bluemont is the closest town to Hillcrest Vineyard, and it had fewer than 3,000 inhabitants. There's fertile land here in these Virginia hills, plenty of abandoned farm equipment, fresh water creeks and lakes, miles of forest for hunting, and narrow dirt roads winding up the foothills to defendable positions.

Daryl interrupts her thoughts. "Ya think Javier's tryin' to get in Rosita pants?"

"Most likely," Carol answers.

"Better watch hisself."

"Why should that be any concern of yours?"

"Rosita's family."

"Well, Rosita can handle herself," Carol tells him. "She's a big girl and she can make her own decisions. She doesn't need a protective big brother type vetting potential suitors. And I don't need a jealous boyfriend doing it either."

"What?" He lowers the raised edge of the map.

"I overheard what you said to Mason, about keeping his eyes off me."

"Well his eyes were all over ya."

"I just don't need it," she says. It was the sort of thing Ed would have done, though she knows Daryl doesn't mean it the same way Ed did. For Ed, it was – keep your eyes off  _my property_. For Daryl, it was probably just a way of looking out for her. Even so…"I don't need it."

"Fine," he mutters. "Next time I'll just let 'em keep eye fuckin' ya, if'n  _that's_  what ya want."

"Daryl," she says sharply. "He was not  _eye fucking_  me. He seemed like a perfectly decent human being."

"Yeah, well, a perfectly decent human bein' will still eye fuck a pretty woman if he gets the chance."

"You don't."

"Not when yer lookin'."

She laughs, and Daryl relaxes. She drives quietly for a while but then decides it might be fun to rile him up. "Mason does look a little bit like Robert Redford," she teases.

"Hmph. Funny the star of  _Indecent Proposal_  should come to yer mind."

"I never understood that movie," she says as she navigates the truck around a torn bumper that is lying in the middle of the road. "What kind of moral dilemma is that, a million dollars to sleep with Robert Redford? That just sounds like a double win to me."

"'Cause she was a married woman!" Daryl swivels his boots off the dash and sits up straight. "Married to her high school sweetheart!"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot that part."

"Damn," he mutters. "Sure hope Mason don't offer ya a million glasses of wine!"

She smiles at him and lowers a hand from the steering wheel to his knee. "I wouldn't sleep with Mason for a million  _bottles_  of wine."

Daryl puts his hand over hers. "Well, I might. For a million of them cigarettes."

[*]

They have to kill two walkers on the streets of Ashburn as they make their way out of the pick-up truck to a hardware store. There they grab a few cans of black spray paint for covering the signs Rick left, work gloves, and some barbwire in case they need to mark off a camp tonight, but that's it, as Hillcrest Vineyard already has a workshop and plenty of tools and wood. They move on to the drafthouse where Rick used green spray paint on the fake wood vaneer. The sign reads the same as the one they saw:  _Meet at Dead End Winery. Ten alive. – Rick_

Daryl stand guard while Carol shakes the can of spray paint and covers the message in thick black lines. When the words are unreadable, he says, "Gonna check out this drafthouse."

"Don't you think Rick already checked it out?"

"Nah, not with a dozen walkers in there."

"A dozen?" She peers through the tinted glass. "Then why are  _we_  checking it out?"

"Told Mason I'd get him a beer. Maybe they got some."

"Really? In a drafthouse?"

He grunts.

Carol tries the door to see if it's unlcoked. It opens, and she pushes it closed as one walker spies her and stumbles near. "I'll draw them over to the exit – " she points to the opposite door several yards away. "And then you go in the entrance and start picking them off."

Carol walks to the exit door, where she pounds on the glass. Gnashing walker faces soon press against it. Daryl disappears inside, and Carol watches the faces begin to slide down the glass door as arrows woosh into their heads. A few creatures break away toward Daryl inside – too many too fast - so she yanks open the door and sends one of her throwing knives sailing into the head of one. Several of the creatures lunge for the door, which prevents it from closing.

Carol's unclipping her hunting knife from her belt when a walker falls upon her, a little too close for comfort, but she stabs it, jerks out her blade, and drives it into the next walker lurching out. When a fourth slips through the door, it closes, but Carol's knife is stuck. She kicks the walker back. It thuds against the window, and the glass rattles. That gives her room to draw another throwing knife. With a clean flick of her wrist, the knife goes sailing straight into the walker's head.

She looks inside and sees Daryl recovering his arrows. Breathing hard, she begins to collect her knives. It's been over a month since she's tackled that many walkers at once. She's almost glad for the practice.

Daryl opens the exit door. "Ya a'ight?"

"Yep," she answers and comes inside, where she walks over walker bodies to a clean spot on the floor. "This place reeks."

"Well, yeah, twelve walkers."

"Stale beer, I mean." She walks to the bar. "But maybe there's some unopened bottles behind the counter. That's where they keep the stuff that's not on tap."

"Ya hang out in a lot of drafthouses?"

"I waited tables in one, starting when I was nineteen." That was how, at the age of twenty-three, with only one high school relationship under her belt, two jobs, and a pair of sore feet itching to be put up, she'd met Ed. She was used to being hit on by the customers, and she hated it, but Ed was different. Ed told his friends to lay off her. But maybe he wasn't being a gentleman. Maybe he'd already decided, way back then, that she was his property.

When she walks around the bar, there's a wasted walker stomach down on the floor, with two broken legs. It begins dragging its way toward her, opening and closing its jaws with a low, hungry growl. "Would you come squish this bug for me, Pookie?" she asks.

Daryl rounds the other end of the bar and sees the walker. "Mhmh. Anyhtin' for m'girl." He lazily raises his bow with one hand and shoots the walker in the back of the head.

Carol opens the fridge, and the door hits the dead walker's ribs. "Your prize awaits," she tells him.

There are twelve cans and twenty bottles inside, a major win. They box them up, and Daryl puts them all in the back of the truck, except for one Dos Equis, which he brings into the passenger seat with him and pops open with his multitool.

"Thanks for asking if I wanted one," Carol says as she starts the truck.

"Yer drivin'."

"I doubt any of these walkers is going to pull me over and give me a DUI," she says as a half a dozen trail desperately after the departing truck and disappear in the rearview mirror.

"Fine. Have mine." He extends her the bottle.

She doesn't take it. "All those craft beers to choose from, and you take the Dos Equis?"

"Well ain't you precious." He takes the bottle back and swigs. "What was your favorite beer, in the old world?"

"Nothing fancy, actually." She's never had a craft beer in her life. "When I was naughty teenager, I was a Bud Lite girl. Then when I turned twenty-one, I developed a taste for Heineken. But I didn't drink once I got married. Ed got so upset if I touched  _his_  beer."

"Tell ya what. Let's take a swing by Georgia while we's out, so I can dig that fucker up and kill 'em again."

"Did you hear what Rosita said?" she asks. "About women who put up with a – "

"- she don't know. She didn't mean nothin' by it."

"But she's right. I was weak. Most of these people I know now, if they knew what I was like back then…" She shakes her head. "I don't know what they'd think of me."

"Yeah, well, I  _did_  know ya back then. And I damn well know what I think of ya."

The left side of her lips curls up. "And what's that?"

"'S what?"

"What you think of me."

"Yer the bees knees." He takes another swig, and she chuckles.

She holds out her hand. "Let me have a sip after all." He hands her the beer, and she takes a genteel sip.

"Chug it," he says.

"Sounds like someone wants to get lucky tonight."

He ducks his head and grins, while she steers with one hand, tilts the bottle up with the other, and lets the liquid slide deliciously down her throat.


	19. Chapter 19

Carol blacks out another sign to Dead End Winery on the Dulless Greenway, a mile from the airport, and then they backtrack to Route 28. Rick thought the airport would be a great place to loot for gas, but there were too many walkers to get any closer, and Daryl and Carol don't try either.

They destroy another message just outside of Chantilly, on a path they never took but Rick and the gang did. When they're back in the truck, with Daryl now driving, Carol studies the map.

She flips it over to a section that has an alphabetical list of Virginia cities, their corresponding grid locations, and their population. "Let's go a little outside of Rick's route and check out Clifton. See what we can loot. The population was only 300. Shouldn't have many walkers."

Daryl nods.

[*]

From the watchtower, Aaron picks off a walker that stumbles through the fields toward the noise of construction. Inside the winery building, Morgan welds pieces of sheet metal together using a battery-operated Mig welder he found in the workshop. Just outside the building, a buzz saw, which is plugged into Hillcrest's one remaining portable power pack, grinds loudly.

A chunk of wood falls to the ground. Rick turns off the saw, raises his goggles, and wipes the sweat from his brow. Michonne has stopped sanding. "You all right, babe?" he asks.

"Just tired," she says. "And worried. About this headquarters in Norfolk."

Javier left two hours ago, after giving them that letter. "Daryl and Carol will cover up all those signs," Rick reassures her as he sets down the power saw. "Those men will never find us out here, even if they do go looking. They'll have to start with Oceanside, and Oceanside has no idea where we are now."

Michonne puts a hand on her stomach and puffs out her cheeks.

"Go get some water," he tells her. "Get some rest. You haven't been well." Rick tries not to sound worried, but he is. Michonne's the only thing that's kept him going since Carl died, and she's keeping him going  _still_ , through the pain of all these fresh losses.

Michonne nods and heads back toward the Inn. Ezekiel picks up the plank Rick's sized and takes it to the bed of a pick-up they'll bring down later to the fence line. Rosita passes Ezekiel and drops off a new piece of wood for Rick to saw. "We're going to run out of power before we can build this thing," she says, "and it's going to take forever doing it all by hand with no power tools and so few people."

"Daryl and Carol will help when they get back. Jesus is out looking for supplies. Maybe he'll find more power packs."

Rosita slides her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "If he  _does_ , we'll need to trade them to Dead End for food to get us through the winter. We'll blow through our canned goods by then. It'll probably be spring before we get anything to grow."

"We'll figure it out," Rick insists. It's not that Rosita's wrong. It's that he feels like every doubt and fear is a judgment on his leadership. They don't have a Council anymore, not really, and most things have fallen to him again. "Maybe Jesus or Daryl and Carol will come back with more canned food. And I'll come up with something for the power tools. Maybe hook them up to a car battery."

"Do you want me fuck him?"

Rick blinks. " _What_?"

"Javier. Do you want me to start fucking him to see how many free supplies we can get from Dead End Winery?"

Instinctively, Rick puts a hand on the butt of his revolver. "Did he  _proposition_  you?"

"No. Not  _directly_." Rosita takes her hands out of her pockets and crosses her arms over her chest. "But he knows I know they've got a shitload of supplies, and he seems to like giving gifts. I don't think he came to give me that watch just out of the kindness of his heart."

Rick exhales and shakes his head. "Rosita,  _no one_  is asking you to prostitute yourself."

She shrugs. "It's not like I'm not going to  _enjoy_  it. Javier used to be a bit of a porker, but he's got a  _great_  body now. He seems hotheaded as hell, but that passion probably translates to the bedroom. And that  _ass,_ I mean _– "_

" - Don't  _suggest_  that kind of trade to him!" Rick interrupts. "No man wants to think he has to buy it. You'll insult him. And the last thing we need right now is to be ticking off the Dead End camp any more than we already have."

"Rick, Rick, Rick," Rosita shakes her head. "He wouldn't  _know_  I was doing it for the supplies. I wouldn't  _say_  that. You have no idea how easy most men are to manipulate."

"Well, why don't you hold off on it awhile."

"Drive up the price?" she asks.

" _No_. Until you're sure it's something you  _want_  to do and  _would_  do even if you weren't getting anything material out of it."

"You're so romantic." Rosita lowers her sunglasses over her eyes. "But I'm not. The last man I let myself love was Abraham. And you know how that turned out." She turns and saunters back to the lumber pile.

[*]

A double yellow line divides Clifton's Main Street. Old wooden houses and brick shops adorn both sides. In the distance, there's a railroad crossing, with the red and white bars stuck in a half-up position. The fall wind picks up a town newspaper that's lying on the sidewalk, flies it like a kite, flutters its pages, and deposits it on the cracked asphalt of the street. A walker stumbles toward them from the overgrown grass beside a historic Baptist church. They ignore it and walk on.

As they pass a small bookstore, Daryl stops. Carol follows his eyes to the window display. A children's book,  _Where the Wild Things Are,_  rests on a book stand, and, on either side of it, two stuffed wild things sit, with furry black manes of hair and golden horns. Daryl looks around for a rock and then slams it against the horizontal window of the wooden front door, which is more like the door to a house than a shop.

"Why are you bothering with a bookstore?" Carol asks.

"Gift for Little Ass Kicker."

When the glass shatters, he reaches through the window and unlocks the door. Once inside, he snags one of the wild things and shoves it in the empty backpack Carol brought for looting, while she shakes her head and smiles. Then they search the store, which yields them nothing more than a dozen giant lollipops.

"Lollipop lollipop," Carol sings as she zips up her backpack, "oh lolli lolli lolli, lollipop lollipop." Daryl shakes his head and starts walking toward the door. Carol follows, signing, "Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli lolli lolli, Lollipop! *POP*" She smacks Daryl on the ass.

"Stop," he grumbles.

Carol thinks he's cute when he's disgruntled, so of course she  _doesn't_  stop. "Call my baby lollipop, tell you why, his kiss is sweeter than an apple pie..," Daryl jerks open the door. Carol dances out of it. "And when he does his shaky rockin' dance, man, I haven't got a chance!"

As Daryl steps onto the sidewalk, he looks considerably less disgruntled than she expected. He says, "Gotta nice voice."

"You sound surprised."

He shrugs. "Never really heard you sing."

"Well, I wasn't going to compete with Beth at the prison. Or the choir at the Kingdom. But I did used to sing in the youth choir at church."

Carol sings a few more lines as they move past an office of some kind, and then she stops in front of a yellow house with a historical marker. She tries to read it through the rust and mud stains. "Jeff Arch wrote the screenplay for  _Sleepless in Seattle_  when he was living here."

"That the best they got?" Daryl asks. "Ain't like it was Jefferson writin' the Declaration."

"Well I loved that movie."

A walker thuds against the inside of the lower window near the porch, and Carol jumps.

"That him?" Daryl asks. "Wanna ask for his autograph?"

Carol laughs. "He only lived here in the 1990s."

They walk on to another house-like building. Carol tries to make out the faded yellow words on the green sign as Daryl kills the lonely church walker that has finally caught up with them. While he's cleaning his arrow, she says, "Former first lady Nancy Reagan dined here on three occasions."

"Three?"

"Occasions," Carol adds.

"Guess she couldn't  _just say no_."

Carol snorts, and Daryl smiles like a schoolboy who has made his crush laugh. "So 's a restaurant?" he asks.

"Apparently. Let's check it out."

Unfortunately, the kitchen has been neatly emptied, perhaps by the owner in the early days, but that doesn't stop them from investigating the General Store a little further down the street. The front window is busted in and the door is already unlocked. When they go inside, the scent of curdled milk throws Carol back a step. Two walkers gnash and growl and jerk toward them. Daryl dispenses with them both. While he yanks out his arrows, Carol notices the two handguns scattered on the floor and a cardboard box full of soda and snacks at the end of one aisle.

"Looks like they was lootin' the place," Daryl surmises as he scoops up the guns. "Got in an argument. Shot each other. Bled out. Died. Turned."

"And so neither took  _anything_. I think we've hit the jackpot, Pookie."

"Gonna get the truck. Move it closer. Start packin'."


	20. Chapter 20

Michonne awakes from her nap to the feel of Rick's lips on her forehead. Her eyelids flutter open. "How's the fence coming along?"

"Making progress," he answers. "All the work is drawing walkers though. Aaron shot two more."

"Two?" Michonne scoffs. "That's nothing. At the Hilltop we'd have drawn ten by now with all that noise."

"I've got to go back out. Just wanted to check on you." He strokes her cheek with the back of his hand. "How are you feeling?"

"A lot better." Michonne searches his eyes and sees how weary they are, how anxious. She knows she needs to tell him about the pregnancy, but she's waiting for the right moment – maybe when Daryl and Carol or Jesus have returned from their missions with more supplies and – she prays – with more people. Then Rick will have less to worry about. "You were right. Water and rest."

Rick sighs and presses his forehead against hers.

"What's troubling you, Sheriff?" Michonne asks softly.

"It feels like the prison all over again. Like I'm just going to build and build and it's all going to fall apart. Everything just…falls apart."

Michonne covers his hand on her cheek and presses his fingertips against her warm flesh. "Not us, though. We don't fall apart."

[*]

The store is small and much of the food is beyond spoiled, but there's still plenty to score. Daryl packs up all the grits, oatmeal, and cereal. Carol clears out a single half-shelf of vitamins. There are no prenatal vitamins, but there's folic acid and a women's daily, which will be good enough for Michonne and Javier's niece. And there's children's gummy vitamins, too.

"Batteries!" Daryl shouts from an aisle over. "'Nuff to fill three shoeboxes."

"Good. We can trade some to Dead End."

"Else they want?"

"Medical supplies. And there's a pharmacy aisle right here." Carol begins to box up over-the-counter medicines, gauze, tape, and other supplies. They also salvage coffee, soda, bottled water, snacks, pasta, rice, and a variety of canned food.

By the time they shove it all in the back of the pick-up, stacked all the way to the cap, the bed is two-thirds full. "Wish I'd brought that bike now, don'tchya?" Daryl asks.

"There's still room. And we've still got the entire extended cab." Carol looks up and down the street. There aren't many vehicles, and none are anywhere near the general store. "What were they going to load the loot into?"

"Let's check the alley."

In the alley behind the general store, they find the looters' truck. The pick-up has its tailgate down and a box full of goodies has already been loaded inside. They take that, along with the four, 5-gallon red gas cans the men had in their bed. After topping off their own tank, they still have ten gallons left.

The couple continues to wander through the ghost town. They find a park with a playground, where Carol sits on the swing and tries to push off the ground with one foot, but the chain is so rusted the swing barely moves.

"C'mon," Daryl grunts. "Ain't got time to play."

[*]

From the stand, Enid surveys the road through binoculars. Inside the inn, Aaron watches the children. In the upper west field, Ezekiel and Nabila swing scythes and cut the tall grasses down so they can turn the earth and prepare the land for fall planting. Some crops may yet grow for harvest in late November, Nabila says, if they get started soon enough. She has less hope for the winter.

Michonne is back to work now, shaping the top of the wood into pikes after Rick saws planks. They'll cover the wood with Morgan's welded sheet metal to protect against fire and bullets, but the pikes are to prevent people from easily climbing over.

As she carves, Michonne watches the sparks fly from Rick's saw. When he puts down the buzz saw, raises his goggles, and takes a sip of water from his canteen, Michonne nods toward the distant field where Ezekiel and Nabila labor. "What odds do you put on those two?"

"What?" Rick asks. "No. If they were going to be a thing, they would have been by now."

"I don't think so. Nabila needed time to grieve her husband after the War. But now she's completely alone. And they're both pretty traditional."

"You just like to play matchmaker." He hands her the canteen.

Michonne sips. "What do you think of Mason? That man Javier brought with him?"

Rick's brow crinkles in confusion. "For Nabila?"

"No. As a trading partner. And a neighbor."

"I think if old man Amos should die of natural causes, and the mantle should fall on his eldest son Mason – well…he might be easier for us to work with."

Michonne nods. "Exactly what I was thinking. Besides…" She shrugs. "Mason's easy on the eyes. He looks a bit like Robert Redford."

"Watch it," Rick warns her with a smile. "He's much too old for you."

She smiles back. "So are you, handsome."

"I'm ten years younger than him!"

Michonne laughs.

Rick's walkie talkie crackles. "He's back," Enid says. "Javier."

[*]

Back on Main Street, Carol and Daryl explore an ice cream shop, the floor of which is coated with shards of glass. Carol scavenges a bottle of rainbow sprinkles. She tests them by pouring some straight into her mouth, chewing, and swallowing. She closes her eyes and murmurs, "Mhmmmm…"

When she opens them, Daryl is watching her and licking his lips.

"Thinking dirty thoughts?" she asks.

"Stop."

She smiles and hands him the jar, and he tosses back some sprinkles.

At a tiny visitor center, Carol grabs a detailed map of Clifton. They pass an antique shop, a Masonic lodge, and what Daryl calls a "goddamn trinket shop."

The street dead ends at the railroad tracks, where an old red caboose is parked in a gravel parking lot. Daryl goes inside.

"Oh, so you get to explore the caboose," Carol says when he jumps down from the other side, "but I don't get to swing on the swing?"

"Ain't nothin' in there," he mutters.

"Did you like trains when you were a boy?"

"Liked jumpin' on and off 'em," he says. "Goin' places."

"What places?" she asks.

"Any place but home."

[*]

Rick and Michonne go to meet the approaching truck. So does Rosita, who has been sawing by hand nearby. When Javier steps down from his truck. His eye flit first over Rosita and then turn to Rick.

"Twice in one day," Rick says. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Javier walks closer and extends Rick a handheld radio. "Mason wants you to have this, so we can communicate without driving all over the place and wasting gas." He glances at Rosita again. "Though I don't mind making the trip."

"What's the range?" Rick asks.

"At least as far as Dead End," Javier answers. "Maybe another mile past that. I've put it on Mason's frequency. Amos wants him in charge of managing trade. So if Carol comes back with those vitamins I asked for, just phone it in. We'll send someone out to trade." Again those coffee brown eyes turn to Rosita. She smiles. Then Javier smiles, as if her smile is contagious. "Probably me."

Rick asks him a question, but he doesn't seem to hear, because he's still looking at Rosita. So Rick repeats himself, a little more loudly this time. "Are you on a septic system at your vineyard?"

Javier shakes his head slightly, like he's shaking off a vision. "Yeah, why?"

"How long does it take to fill if you don't pump it?"

"Well we ration toilet paper. And we mostly use the outdoors for number one. Only use the toilets for number two."

"What is this," Rosita asks, "Sesame Street hour?"

Even when she's trying to seduce a man, Rick thinks, she can't turn off her snark. But it doesn't matter. Javier smirks right back. "My mother taught me it's impolite to swear in front of ladies. I forgot, for a moment, that you weren't one."

Rosita rolls he eyes. "Yeah, but only a moment. Because you were dropping f-bombs like the Eighth Air Force over Berlin the first time you came here."

Javier chuckles.

"How often do you need to pump it out?" Rick asks again.

"Every two weeks or so," Javier answers. "We pump it through tubes into the leaching field."

"And how do you do that without electricity?"

"We don't. We have a portable electric pump we use. That's what we wanted the battery power packs for. It's a lot easier to plug it into one of those than to try to wire it all the way back to the solar power bay we rigged up. But we can recharge the battery packs from the bay."

"Then why did you need three?" Rosita asks.

"To use to plug in three things at once, obviously. We also run a water heater on shower days so the water isn't quite so cold."

"You have running water?" Rick asks.

Rosita puts her hands in her back pockets, which has the effect of exposing more of her cleavage, and of drawing Javier's eyes like a magnet to the little bit of black bra that peeks out of her partially open shirt. "Oh God I'd love a shower," she says. "To be standing naked under a hot stream of water, letting it drip all over me…"

Javier swallows. He drags his eyes away as if he were dragging a two-hundred pound weight. "You should, too," he tells Rick. "These wells are gravity fed. If you aren't getting water in, the intake may have gotten clogged. You need to pressurize the system and blow air back up the line and blow the clog free. I could uh…show Rosita how to do it."

Rosita smiles. "That would be a really big help. I bet you're a good teacher, too." Rick and Michonne exchange knowing glances. "My brother always told me you were the smartest of his friends."

"Well, to Juan a domesticated turkey would have seemed smart."

Rosita spurts out a laugh that is surprising in its pure naturalness. "Oh my God, he was dumb, wasn't he?"

"If it weren't for football, he never would have made it into A&M, that's for sure. But he was kind. One of the kindest men I've ever known. Let's just say I went through a lot of hard times in college. Juan got me through it all."

Rosita's obviously affected by his words, and it throws her off her game. "Then that watch actually meant something to you?"

"Of course it did. Why else would I have kept it all these years? We fell out of touch, but…."

"Jesus," Rosita says. "I didn't know." She unclips the silver watch, which she's had to tighten to its last band, slides it off her slender wrist, and hands it to him. "You keep it then."

"He was your bother."

"Juan and I weren't very close. Seriously," she shakes it in front of him. "You keep it."

"I hate to take back a gift," Javier says as he reaches for it. His hand lingers on hers for a moment, but he slides the watch free. "So in exchange, I'll give you back one of those two power packs I took this morning. If Amos lets me. And when you need it re-charged, I can re-charge it for you from our solar bay. But no more than once a week."

"Thank you," she says. "That would help us a lot."

Javier nods and his eyes twinkle. "So…you want to show me your plumbing, hermosa?"

Rosita chuckles and jerks her head toward the well. "This way."

When they're out of earshot, Rick turns to Michonne with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not that easily manipulated, am I?"

Michonne laughs. "Rosita's playing with fire," she says. "She thinks she can control the flame, but fifty bucks and a blowjob says she falls for him."

Rick holds out his hand. "Deal."

Michonne shakes. "Hey," she calls after Rick as he heads back to the cutting board. "What do I get if you lose?"

[*]

When they're back in the truck, Daryl takes the wheel while Carol looks at the map of Clifton and suggests stopping at a winery.

"Hell for?" Daryl asks. "Got plenty of wineries where we come from."

"But those have all been looted by Dead End. Besides, it's almost five. We each had one protein bar and a mputhful of sprinkles for lunch. We need a dinner break, and it might be a romantic place to dine. And a safe place to camp."

"We ain't drivin' straight through to the Hilltop? Ain't much further."

"Don't you want to take your girl out to dinner?"

He glances at her and then returns his eyes to the road. He wonders if she's doing the same thing she did on the way to Dead End Winery – dragging out the trip to delay the truth. Because what if they get to the Hilltop, and Daryl can't read the sign? What if there are no tracks leading away to any survivors?

What if he fails her spectacularly, the way he did in his search for Sophia?

"Mhm," he murmurs, his eyes fixed on the road. "Take m'girl out to dinner."


	21. Chapter 21

Rick sits on the bed with an exhausted sigh. "Five o'clock," he mutters. "Quitting time." He crosses one foot over his leg and begins unlacing his boot.

In the adjoining bathroom, Michonne turns on the faucet to the tub. It gurgles and belches and then clear, cold water spills out. "Holy shit!" she calls to Rick through the open door. "Put the kettle on the fire, babe!" She pushes the plunger down into the drain and then shakes off the frigid water from her hand. They can mix boiling water with the cold tub water to make a warm bath.

"You mean Javier actually  _fixed_  it?" Rick asks.

Michonne steps into the bedroom as the water plummets into the tub. "All I can say is – Rosita better fuck that man until his eyes roll in the back of his head."

[*]

There is no vineyard at the Clifton winery – just a few acres of overgrown grass extending to the forest behind a large wooden structure that sits on stilts, allowing for an expansive back deck that overlooks the trees.

They enter through the unlocked front door and into the spacious tasting room. Four people have clearly been living here, but it appears they've died and turned. Given the large number of empty bottles scattered over the floors and tables, and the flies buzzing around stale vomit, alcohol poisoning might have been the culprit.

"Romantic, huh?" Daryl asks after they slay the lurching creatures.

"We can camp outside on the back deck."

But first they go through a door from the tasting room straight into the small winery, where the cement floor around the oak barrels has turned red-black with soaked-up wine. It's as if the people camping here took a hatchet to the barrels, captured what wine they could in glasses, and then let the rest flow to the ground. "What a waste," Carol mutters.

"One left." Daryl rolls out an unopened barrel and stands it upright. "Wanna share a barrel with dinner?"

"Maybe we can find a  _bottle_. Let's take the barrel home."

_Home._  It's odd that she's already thinking of their new camp as  _home_ , but maybe it's not. Home is where her people are. And maybe, by the time they're done with this journey, they'll have brought more of their people home.

_Maybe._

Carol's heart is half full of hope, and half braced for disappointment. Daryl, as if reading her mind, slings an arm across her shoulders. "C'mon," he says gently. "'S eat."

[*]

Michonne leans back against Rick's bare chest in the tub and hands him the washcloth.

He kisses her shoulder and lets his eyes roam her naked body through the clear water. Her abdomen seems a little less taut than usual.

_Good_ , he thinks. It's good she put on a few pounds during the times of plenty at the Hilltop, because it might be a lean winter.

[*]

While Carol searches for unopened bottles of wine, Daryl brings in their backpacks, sleeping bags, a mixed box of food from the truck, and a hatchet. He carries them out to the large back deck. Eventually, she scrounges up three unopened bottles among three hundred empty ones, and when she comes outside, Daryl is chopping up old wine barrels to make wood for the brick fireplace. The chimney of the fireplace rises through an opening in the wood awning that covers the entire deck.

The air is crisp and fresh. No hint of the stench inside wafts out, and the autumn forest view is spectacular. A tapestry of gold and orange drapes the trees. There's no staircase leading up to the deck, which is twenty feet above the ground, so there's no chance of walkers reaching them while they sleep.

Carol chooses the Chardonnay for their dinner because she's serving it with the canned tuna they got from the general store, which she mixes with some pickle relish, spices, and honey mustard to make a tuna salad. She sets a two-person table using plates, silverware, and wine glasses she found in a small dishwasher behind the tasting bar. The table she chooses is not in front of the fireplace – there's a white wicker couch and a glass coffee table there instead – but it's close enough for some warmth and situated for an excellent view of the forest. She opens the wine, pours them each a glass, and then lights a candle in a red glass holder at the center of the table, even though the sun hasn't begun to set. She just likes the added touch. "Dinner's ready."

The fire is now lit, but Daryl is still stoking it. He drops the poker with a clang to the deck and looks strangely nervous as he walks over and sits down at the table across from her.

She jokes, "What, never been on a fancy dinner date before?"

"Ain't never been on  _any_  date."

" _Never_?"

"Ain't no virgin!" he clarifies. "Just...never saw the point of  _datin'_."

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" she asks.

"Weren't no poon hound neither. Just…" He seizes the glass of wine she's poured him and takes a big sip. When he puts it down, he admits, "Dunno what people's s'posed to talk 'bout on dinner dates."

She smiles. "Then let's not call it a date. Let's call it Carol and Daryl eating dinner together, like we've done a few hundred times."

Daryl takes another sip of wine. He digs into his tuna salad and shovels a heaping forkful into his mouth. "Mmmmmm," he murmurs, and closes his eyes for a moment. "Damn good. "Like what ya done with it."

Carol's more pleased by his compliment than she lets on. "It pairs nicely with the Chardonnay, doesn't it?" she quips.

"Mhm."

Silence descends. Carol's used to silence with Daryl, but now that she's foolishly set this up as a fancy dinner, the silence is suddenly awkward. So she blurts, "Michonne's pregnant."

Daryl swallows and coughs, but the news gets him talking. "How'd Rick take it?"

"She hasn't told him."

"Hell not?"

"She's nervous about his reaction."

"Hell, he'll be happy as a dead pig 'n sunshine."

Carol peers at him over her wine glass. "That doesn't sound very happy."

"When a dead pig lies out 'n the sun," explains Daryl, setting his glass down with a clink, "Lips start to pull back from 's teeth." Daryl stretches his own lips in demonstration. "Looks like a big ass grin."

"Well, Michonne's worried."

"Dunno why. Rick'll step up."

"Those two just work," Carol says. "Though sometimes I don't get the attraction."

"What?"

"I don't know what she sees in him."

"Know  _'zactly_  what she sees in 'em." Daryl flicks up the thumb of one hand. "Handsome as fuck." He raises his index finger. "Smart." He puts up his middle finger. "Can build shit." He holds up a fourth finger. "Bad ass." He holds up his last finger. "Good daddy." The he starts on the thumb of his other hand. "Got honor." Index finger. "Treats 'er right." Third finger. "Takes charge." Fourth finger. He looks like he's thinking deep. "Handsome as fuck," he repeats.

"Sounds like someone has a man crush."

"Bet Rick always knows what to say on a dinner date, too."

"You're not doing too badly yourself."

"Don't ya like Rick?" Daryl asks.

"Except when he left Sophia behind. I blamed him for that for a while. Maybe not fairly, but I  _did_. And I didn't like it when he didn't tell us that everyone has the disease, as if that was his secret to keep. I wasn't too thrilled about his Ricktatorship."

" _Ricktatorship_?"

"You  _know_  what I'm talking about," she says. She once called Daryl Rick's henchman, after all. She'd wanted, so much, for Daryl to step up and lead them back then. "And I can't say I loved it when he banished me."

"Mhm. Yeah." Daryl grits his jaw, takes a bite of the tuna salad, chews slowly, and swallows hard. "Ya like 'em now, though?"

"Now? Now I love him like a brother. But sometimes your brother infuriates you. And sometimes you can't see how your brother manages to get such a beautiful, elegant, competent, courageous, artistic wife."

"Sounds like someone's got a woman crush."

Carol chuckles. "Maybe a little. Listen, don't tell Rick about the pregnancy. And don't tell Michonne I told you."

Daryl zips his lips with his fingertips, picks up his wine, and drinks it down to the last sip.

[*]

As Rick sits down before the fireplace in the library and stretches his legs under the coffee table, Judith pats his head and says, "Clean, clean, Daddy. Allllll clean!"

He wishes that were true. He wishes he could wash away all the blood of the last thirty months, that this book-lined room, the comforting fire, his happy little girl playing with a puzzle, H.G. sleeping peacefully in the play pen, Gracie lounging happily against Michonne on the couch…he wishes all this quiet innocence could be the true reflection of their world.

His hand falls to the oriental rug beneath the table, and it lands on wood. "Hey!" he tells Judith. "I found the missing piece." He hands her a wooden puzzle piece, which has a picture of the earth and the sun and the moon, with a big red handle to make it easier to hold and place.

"Sun!" Judith says, pointing to the sun. "Mooooon!" She points to the moon. Then she points to the earth. "Woiled. Woiled!" She's trying to say world, but still finishes with "woiled." Judith tries to cram the puzzle piece into the open spot on her puzzle frame, but she's got it upside down.

"You have to change it around," Rick tells her.

"Change it," Judith echoes, turning the piece clockwise. "Change it." She turns it a little further. "Change de woild." She pushes the piece in, and it clicks in place. "Judith changes de woild!"

Rick puts a hand on her head and almost chokes on an unexpected surge of hope. "Yes, sweetie," he tells her. "I believe you will."

Aaron pokes his head into the library. "Dinner time. I cooked, but I already ate so I can go relieve Morgan on watch."

"Come on, sweetie," Michonne tells Gracie, rousing her from her nap. "Let's eat."

[*]

Daryl, pouring until the wine almost overflows the brim, refills their glasses.

"You're supposed to leave some room," Carol says.

"Hell for?"

"Because the owner fires you if you don't."

"Ain't no owner here. 'Cept us."

"Damn right." Carol plucks up the glass. A little liquid sloshes out onto her fingers, and she drinks the glass down to a manageable level. "This kind of reminds me of that night in the CDC."

Daryl huff-laughs. "Glenn's face got so damn red."

"And Carl took that tiny sip and practically spit it out."

"I's so damn drunk, I made a pass at Andrea."

" _Andrea_?" Carol exclaims. "Why not  _me_?"

"Even  _that_  drunk, I knew ya was too good for me."

"And what did Andrea say?" she asks, feeling a sudden jolt of jealousy, which is silly, because it's not as if Daryl owed her any fidelity back then.

"Hell you think? She told me to fuck off. Then Dale cornered me in the hall ten minutes later and told me I damn well keep it in my pants or he'd sit on it for me."

Carol bursts out laughing. "What?"

"Or somethin' like that. Don't 'member what he said 'zactly. Told him to go back to On Golden Pond and sit on Jane Fonda's dick."

Carol covers her mouth as if that could contain her laughter.

[*]

Javier joins the Hillcrest camp for dinner. There's spaghetti. Piles of it, but not much else. Nabila removes the nursing blanket she's covered herself with, burps H.G., and then hands him over to Ezekiel, who takes a break from eating to cradle the infant in his arms so that Nabila can eat.

"Why are you planting the upper west field?" Javier asks.

"So we can have food," Ezekiel answers matter-of-factly.

"But why start there?"

"Because the grasses are less overgrown there. There's far less to cut down, and we can prepare the land with greater haste."

Javier scoops up his water glass. "Ever ask yourself  _why_  the grasses are less overgrown there?"

"Nabila is an excellent gardener," Ezekiel insists, "she knows what she is doing."

"Okay then." Javier shrugs as he sets down his water glass. "Don't listen to me. What do I know? I just have a degree in agriculture. And a master's in crop science. And I was a farm manager. By profession. For a decade. I still am."

"I thought you were a plumber," Tara says. "Isn't that why we have water now?"

"My father was a plumber," Javier replies. "He took me to work a lot, when I was a kid."

"A jack of all trades…" Rosita raises her glass to him, and he smiles.

"Gardening isn't exactly the same as farming," Nabila tells Ezekiel, looking a little embarrassed not to be sure of her choice of field. "Most of my life experience has been in urban gardens, like we had in the Kingdom." She turns her attention to Javier. "Where would you recommend we plant instead?"

Javier and Nabila talk about agriculture for a while, until the radio on Javier's hip crackles, and Mason's syrupy drawl comes through: "Where the hell are you? You were supposed to relieve me twenty minutes ago. Are you still fraternizing with that chaquita bonita you got your eye – "

Javier abruptly turns the radio all the way down, tosses his napkin on the table, and stands. "Excuse me," he says. "I have to get back. Thanks for the dinner. I'll show myself out."

Rosita's chair scrapes back, but by the time she gets around the dining table, he's already out the front door.

[*]

"Cab pairs well with stale ding dongs," Daryl says.

They've eaten a package each. Carol  _thinks_  she only had one glass of the second bottle of wine, but somehow the entire wine bottle is empty, and her head is buzzing.

Daryl grins at her dopily. "So goddamn beautiful," he mutters.

Carol looks over her shoulder. "Who?"

"M'Girl." He pushes back his chair, walks over to her – with a slight stumble in his step – and holds out his hand.

Carol takes his and stands up. "Are we going to dance?"

"If'n ya want." He yanks her close, wraps an arm around her waist, and sways a little. His face buried in the crook of her neck, he beings to nibble the sensitive flesh, which sends a shiver all the way down her spine. He kisses his way up her neck, and his teeth scrape her earlobe. "Wanna dance?" he whispers, his voice husky in her ear.

"Uh-huh" is all she can manage.

Daryl puts his hand on her lower back and pushes her body against his. He claims her mouth in a hungry kiss. Their bodies are only swaying, but their tongues are dancing, twirling over each other in a wild tango. Daryl rips his mouth away and, breathing hard, steps back.

Carol wants to scream. She thought this was going to be the time - the first time he  _finally_  started something - the first time she didn't have to  _ask_. But he's  _already_  stopping.

"Daryl," she pleads, but her next words are drowned out by the sound of him clomping over to the coffee table in front of the fireplace. He kicks the table away from the couch with his heel. It slides, scratching across the deck. He kicks it again, twice more, until the floor in front of the fireplace is clear.

"What are you  _doing_?" she asks.

He yanks the one-piece, dark green, futon-like cushion off the whicker couch and lets it fold out flat on the deck, like a full-size mattress, before the crackling fireplace.

" _Oh_ ," she says.

Then he seizes one of their sleeping bags, frantically unties the strings that hold it together, and unzips it with a series of clumsy rasps before flicking it out open over the top of the mattress. He looks at her hopefully. "'S okay?"

Carol smiles. "It's perfect."


	22. Chapter 22

_Damn_  but his girl feels good.

Carol rides him in a straddled position, pressing his back deeper into the soft fabric of the open sleeping bag that covers the cushion. The fireplace sighs and crackles in an echo of her beautiful whimpers. He braces her with one hand on her hip, and with the other he fondles her breasts. How can they be so soft and so firm at the same time? How can a woman be two things at once?

Carol's a hundred things at once. And she wants a dozen things at once, or at least one after the other. It's "harder" and then "gentle," "faster" and then "slow," "there" and then "here," and then, when he does a half sit-up to flick his tongue around her hardened nipple, it's "please, please, please…"

"Please what?"

" _More_."

So he gives her more…until the desperate jerking of her hips throws him down on his back again. Her little moans, and the way she's biting her bottom lip to hold them back, just about drive him mad. He has to start disassembling and reassembling the parts of a crossbow in his mind just to keep from going over the brink.

Finally, Carol moans his name, arches her back, and goes suddenly still for the briefest of moments before the orgasm rips through her lithe frame and sends it shivering atop him.

The recently assembled crossbow dissolves into a thousand pieces in his mind, and he flips her on her back beneath him before driving in again. He thrusts twice, hard, before crying in one long string, "OhGodCarolfuckyeahsweetthing…Ahhhhhh…."

Daryl collapses on top of her.

He's pretty sure he's dead. He can barely breathe. He's died and gone to heaven. This is heaven, this satisfied woman's naked flesh pressed beneath him.

"Daryl," she whispers, and pushes against his shoulder.

He's crushing her. Of course he's crushing her. He must weigh twice what she does. "M'Sorry," he says as he slides off. He captures the condom, and still in a haze, ties it off and lobs it into an empty, wine-barrel-shaped trash can to the left of the fireplace.

[*]

Michonne hands the last dish to Rosita, who dries it and puts it in the rack. "So…." Michonne says. "Where did you and Javier disappear to between when he fixed the plumbing and when we had dinner?"

"He wanted to see the septic tank."

" _Seriously_?" Michonne asks.

"He wanted to see if it was easy to access. He said he'll lend us their portable pump twice a month to get the sludge out, in exchange for the vitamins, if Carol gets them."

"Twice a month for a few bottles of vitamins? That's generous." Michonne smiles. "I guess he'll have to bring it over and stay the whole time it's working. And I guess he'll have to find something to occupy his time while he does."

Rosita tosses the towel on the counter. "And I guess Rick told you my plan."

"Funny thing about plans," Michonne says. "Things don't always go according to them. Watch out you don't lose your heart."

"Trust me. I'm not going to fall for Javier. Sure, I've got an itch that could use the occasional scratching. And we need supplies. But love…that's for gamblers and fools."

Michonne chuckles as Rosita struts from the kitchen.

[*]

Daryl spoons up against Carol, draws her back against himself, and bends his head until his nose is in the crook of her neck. He breathes in. She smells like fall leaves and smoke and peaches and soap and…Carol. "Smell like Carol."

She giggles. "Thank you. I think."

His head buzzes as he kisses her bare shoulder and then settles his chin on top of her silver hair. Shit. Her hair smells good too.

"Let's zip up the bag," she says. "It's cold."

He's hotter than hell and half of Georgia, but he does what she asks anyway. Beneath the soft interior of the sleeping bag, she nests back into the curve of his body perfectly, like….well, like a spoon stacked against another in the drawer. "Spoons!" he exclaims. "Get it now."

She giggles again. She sounds like a teenage girls when she giggles, but she feel like…" _All_  woman," he mutters. "Hundred percent woman. Woman. Woman. Sexy  _woman_."

"You clearly drank more of that wine than I did," Carol says. She shifts her ass back against him slightly. If he hadn't just finished, that little movement would be giving him a rise for sure. As is, it still sends a tiny jolt through him.

"'S good?" he murmurs. "Ya liked it?"

"I liked it a lot."

He's relieved to hear her say so, because he's never quite sure of his performance. She sure  _seems_  to like it – but he's never really paid attention to what women want before. He's only ever had sex with strangers or near strangers, and he's never really  _cared_  what they want. "Been a selfish ass."

"What?"

"Not to ya."

"No," she agrees.

The first time he had sex, the girl wasn't  _quite_  a stranger, but she wasn't a friend either. He knew Becky from around the neighborhood. Hell, every guy did. She popped a dozen cherries in that trailer park. Daryl started getting serious heat from Merle about being eighteen and  _still_  a virgin. It was as if Merle came home from the army and took him from their father's cabin just to rib him for being a queer.

So Daryl saved up the money he made at the gas station – at least the small part he hid from his brother instead of turning it over for the bills - and bought a bottle of Wild Turkey after hours at the liquor store. Wild Turkey. That's what he heard it took to get Becky Wentworth's clothes to fall clear off.

They did it in the bed of her beat up pick-up in an empty church parking lot. He didn't take off anything of his own except his pants and boxers, and those he only got to his knees. He was nervous, and he didn't really like her all that much, so he had trouble finishing. And when she started asking,  _Are you done yet? Are you done yet_? he almost  _couldn't_  finish. So he had to start thinking about a couple of pretty cheerleaders he used to go to high school with – before he dropped out of high school – the kind of girls who would cross to the other side of the hallway when they saw them coming.

It wasn't the last time he had to fantasize to see the act to completion. Sometimes, Merle would pick up girls in bars and expect Daryl to screw the friend of whatever one he wanted, whether Daryl wanted to or not.  _Take one for the team_ , Merle always said. It's weird, Daryl thinks, how he used to have to think of something else to make it over the edge, but with Carol, he has to think of something else just to  _keep_  from going over it. That's why he came like a jackrabbit their first time, he thinks. He wasn't expecting to be able to get off so easily with a woman. But everything is different with Carol. He wants her in a way he's never wanted any woman before, in a way he never thought it was possible to want a woman.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Carol asks.

"Uh…" Daryl feels a sudden slap of panic. "Uh…"

"What  _are_  you thinking?"

He swallows. "Just thinkin' I love ya."

It's not until she grows very still that he even realizes what he just said. And it's not until she says, almost in a whisper, "I love you, too, Daryl" that he realizes he  _meant_  it.

"Yeah," he agrees with himself. "I love Carol." He closes his eyes. Damn but he feels sleepy all the sudden. And before he knows it, he's out like all the lights in Atlanta.

[*]

Back at the Bed and Breakfast, things are winding down. Judith gets her first real bath in days and shares the tub with Gracie as Michonne pours lukewarm water over their heads to squeals and laughter. Enid takes the younger toddler and carries her upstairs to bed, while Judith settles into the middle of the King Size bed and hands Rick  _Where the Wild Things Are_.

"Didn't your Uncle Daryl read this to you last night?" he asks.

"Wead agin!" she demands.

"Okay then." He opens it to the first page. "Your brother used to make me read him  _Goodnight Moon_  over and over. I think I must have read it eight hundred times." Rick wonders how much she remembers Carl, if she'll forget him entirely one day, if she already has. Judith is all he has left of his only son – his only biological child. Rick pushes away the painful memory, but it's back as soon as he starts reading: "The night he wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another…"

[*]

Carol awakes when Daryl eases out of the sleeping bag in the middle of the night to piss off the deck through the open slats between the rails. She feels the pressure in her own bladder and wishes she had a man's plumbing. Instead she's got to grab a roll of toilet paper from the pack, use a tin bucket as a chamber pot, and duck behind an armchair at the far end of the deck for some privacy. She throws the entire bucket over the rail.

She comes back to bed freezing and smelling of hand sanitizer and pushes Daryl onto his side when she squeezes into the sleeping bag. The fire has petered out. She puts her cold feet on his warmer legs, and he shouts, "Hey!"

"You love me, so you have to warm me up," she says.

"Thatta rule?"

"Yes."

"Fine." He lets her slide her feet between both his legs and rub them up and down. When they aren't so cold, she rolls over, spoons back into the warmth of his arms, and falls to sleep again.

[*]

Judith is up much too early. The sun is only barely beginning to rise, and already she's jumping on her knees in the bed between them. Rick opens one eye and groans. They're going to have to build a toddler bed for her and stick it in the nook where the armchair, hassock. and endtable currently stand. Maybe they can put up a dividing curtain, which will give them so privacy.

"Go back to sleep," Michonne mutters from the other side of the bed.

"Hungwy hungwy hungwy!"

"It's not time for breakfast," Rick tells her.

"Hungwy!"

The deep sound of Ezekiel's voice as he sings to H.G. drifts from the first-floor library through the hallway and seeps under their door.

"Go ask Ezekiel to make you breakfast," Rick says. "He's awake."

"Zekey, Zekey, Zekey!" Judith cries as she backs off the bed and ever so carefully lowers herself down. But once she's sure she's got her footing, she runs to the door. It takes her three tries to get it open, but she does, and she disappears into the hallway, leaving the door wide open.

Michonne eases out of bed, closes it, and crawls back in. She snuggles up with Rick and puts her head on his chest. "She talks a lot for a not-yet two year old."

"She's a genius." Rick twirls one of Michonne's dreadlocks around his finger than untwirls it.

"I don't remember Andre talking nearly that much at that age."

Rick's hand falls from her hair and he hugs her tightly. It's not often she mentions her son. "You okay?"

"I'm not sad," she says. "Thinking about him doesn't make me sad right now. Maybe because…"

"Because what?" he asks.

"Maybe because I'm pregnant."

[*]

The sweet tweeting of a bright red cardinal awakes Carol the second time. The sun, which is just beginning to rise, sends shards of light glittering through the openings between the slats in the deck's railing. The cardinal flies from the rail of the deck and alights on the brick base of the fireplace. It tilts its head and studies her as if she's an unfamiliar creature in this world of walkers.

"Hey, birdie," she whispers, and it lets off one shrill tweet and flutters away.

Daryl stirs behind her, and when he shifts, she can feel the sharp poke of his erection against her back.

"Well good morning to  _you_ ," she says.

"Sorry," he mutters, and pulls back a little. "Mornin' wood."

She rolls to face him and gently pushes back the hair that has fallen into his eyes. His hair is not as long as it was in the War against the Saviors, but it's nowhere near as short as it was when she first met him. She kisses his lip softly, and he responds lazily. He moves his hand slowly from her hip to her ass and kneads gently while they savor each other's mouths.

"Want to grab a condom?" she asks. "Just to have it nearby. In case."

"In case?" he asks.

"In case we end up there."

His expression morphs from confusion to disappointment "We might not?"

"Let's just see what happens."

He half crawls out of the sleeping bag to grab his pants and dig out the condom packet, which he puts to the side of the sleeping bag, and then he returns his attention to her. And what careful attention it is.

They make love slowly, exploring each other tenderly as the sun finishes rising fully over the trees.

They end up  _there_ , of course.

They almost drift back to sleep again afterward, until they hear the familiar sounds of gnashing jaws, like insects sawing. It begins low, but grows louder, and Daryl quickly unzips the sleeping bag. Through the chilly autumn morning air, they both dash naked to the railing of the deck and look over.

"Oh shiiiiiit," says Daryl as he looks down at the dozen walkers that have gathered in the overgrown grass below the deck and the dozen more that are spilling out of the forest and sniffing the air.


	23. Chapter 23

Rick hasn't said anything for a full five minutes. Michonne's gut does a somersault, forward and then backward and then forward again. "Did you hear me?" she asks finally.

"I heard you. I'm just processing. Give me a minute."

"I  _gave_  you a minute." She lifts her head from his chest, rolls more to her side, and props her head up on her hand, an elbow to the bed.

Rick is on his back, staring at the ceiling. Eventually, he rolls on his side, puts a hand on her hip, and looks her directly in the eyes. "Lori died in child birth."

"Oh."  _Of course_  he'd be thinking of that. All her worries have been about the child – how  _it_  would survive in this dangerous world. But Rick's worried about  _her_.

"We need a plan of action," he says.

"A plan of action?" she asks.

"Finding out what kind of doctor Dead End has. Seeing if we can barter for his or her services. Securing the goods we'll need to barter."

"I'm still fairly young, Rick. Andre was an easy vaginal birth. I won't likely need a C-section. I don't want you to worry about that."

"We need vitamins. Folic acid, right?"

"Carol's on it. Jesus, too."

Rick's eyes widen with disbelief. "You told  _Jesus_ before you told  _me_?"

"No. But Javier wants prenatal vitamins for his niece. So both Carol and Jesus are looking for them. But…I did tell Carol. I asked her to bring me a pregnancy test. Which was positive."

Fortunately, Carol knowing doesn't seem to offend Rick. "We need to put you on light duty," he says. "Inside, where it's safe and not strenuous. I can take you off the fence building. Reassign you to childcare. Dishes. Communications. Give you the radio. You – "

"- I'm pregnant, Rick. I'm not an invalid. I can help with the fence just fine. If I need rest, I'll take it."

Rick's eyes don't agree, but he doesn't contradict her with her mouth. Instead, he stands and begins to pace in front of the bed. "Doctor. Prenatal vitamins. Crib." He stops pacing. "We'll need a crib."

"We have both a pack and play and a crib here. H.G. doesn't need both. Our baby can have one or the other."

"Names," he says.

"Names?" Michonne asks.

"We have to decide on a name," Rick says.

"Today? I don't think so."

Rick resumes pacing. "Vitamins," he repeats. "Doctor. Light duty. Crib. Towels. We have plenty of towels in this Inn. Hot water – we have running water. We can put kettles on." He's using his fingers now to re-list the items. "Vitamins. Doctor. Light duty. Crib. Towels. Hot water. What am I missing?"

"A  _pause_ ," Michonne tells him.

Rick puts a hand over his mouth. He looks at her, sitting there on the bed, and laughs between his fingers. His hand falls from his mouth and he laughs again. "You're pregnant," he says, a huge, smile spreading across his face. "My wife is  _pregnant_."

Michonne smiles.

"We're having a baby!" Rick crawls on his hands and knees from the end of the king bed toward her. He stops with his hands on either side of her hips, his face a few inches from hers. "Babe," he whispers with excitement and then bounces almost like Judith did a few minutes earlier. "We're having a baby!"

Michonne laughs, wraps her arms around his neck, and leans into his happy kiss.

[*]

Carol and Daryl have dressed and packed hastily, thrown on their backpacks, seized their weapons, and are now at the front of the tasting room. Because the building is built into a hill, the back deck is raised far above the reach of walkers, but the front of the building is level with the gravel parking lot. Daryl peers through the window as Carol puts down the box of assorted food he brought in last night. "Shit," he says. "There's more out front. Two dozen 'tween us and the truck."

"And there were more coming out of the back woods."

"They's migratin'. Should wait for 'em to pass."

"They probably are migrating, but the ones out back were  _sniffing_. They caught scent of us from the deck." Carol sheds her backpack, unzips it, and starts shoving in what she can from the box –spices, the one remaining bottle of wine, two unopened cans of tuna. "If we wait, and the rest of the herd catches up, and they all press in - we could get trapped inside for days. Assuming they don't eventually bust through." The zipper rasps as she jerks her backpack closed. "I say we make a run for it while we still can." Carol slides on her backpack again. "Two dozen? We've gotten past more than that before."

"Guess we ain't bringing that barrel of wine." Daryl takes out his handgun, thumbs off the safety, and racks back the slide. The crossbow isn't going to cut it in such close quarters, and he'll have no time to recover his arrows. He reaches into his jacket pocket, fishes out the truck keys, and hands them to her. "I cover. Ya'open."

Carol takes the keys in one hand and draws her knife in the other. She nods. Daryl rips open the door and immediately shoots the nearest three walkers to clear a temporary path for Carol.

Her ears ringing, she jumps over a dead body and jogs fifteen steps before she has to knife a walker. Two more close in on her from each side, but Daryl's bullets take them down. She strides forward another ten steps and stabs a walker that is lurching straight toward her, while Daryl, following closely behind, picks off two more on her sides.

It all seems manageable until she sees that there are more walkers spilling out of the woods toward the truck. She won't be able to get around to the driver's side – she'll have to go through the passenger's door.

Carol runs forward a few more steps and plunges her knife into dead flesh again. Daryl takes down the walker on her right. She expects the one of her left to fall, too, but instead she hears the dry click of Daryl's handgun.

Now there are two walkers coming for her at once. Carol makes a split decision. Better to attack the one in front of her, because once Daryl does switch out magazines, he won't be able to shoot  _through_  her. She kicks out her left foot and drives the one on her side back three steps even as she plunges her knife into the walker directly before her.

She doesn't hear Daryl's spare magazine clicking into pace, but she hears the bang of the handgun just as the walker she kicked back stumbles toward her again. The creature crumbles to the gravel, and Carol strides on.

It continues like this all the way to the truck, walkers coming at her straight on and from both sides:  _stab-bang-bang-stab-bang-bang-stab-bang-bang-stab._

Carol shoves the keys into the passenger side door and unlocks it while Daryl shoots two more walkers. That makes nine bullets. He's got three more,  _if_  that spare magazine is full.

Carol jerks open the door and tosses her backpack on the floor.

_Bang._

She climbs inside and begins to crawl across to the driver's die, but a walker seizes her ankle.

_Bang._

The walker's grip slackens and she pulls herself the rest of the way in and jams the keys into the ignition.

Two walkers reach their clawing arms through the open passenger side door and try to climb inside. Six more gnash their faces against the driver's side window. Three press in against the hood.

_Click._

Daryl drops his empty handgun, flings his crossbow off his shoulder and into his grip in one smooth motion, and shoots the walker that is reaching for Carol. With no time to reload, he flips his crossbow around, runs forward, and bashes the other in the back of the head. Then he drags both bodies out of the truck.

While he's clearing the bodies, one walker rounds the back of the truck and the other the front. Both lurch toward him.

Carol throws the truck into drive. "Get in!"

Daryl kicks back one walker, swivels, and bashes the head of the second with the butt of his crossbow. Then he leaps onto the running board with his left foot and seizes the strap on the passenger's side with his left hand.

Carol guns it. The truck slams over the walkers that are clawing against the hood with a  _thud, thud, thud._  The force of the movement sends Daryl flying back against the side of the truck. His fingers begin to slip away from the strap he's holding.

Panicked she's about to lose him out the door, Carol makes a sharp turn that sends him slamming back the other direction. With one hand on the wheel and the other outstretched, she seizes his belt and yanks it hard to hold him in place until he can get his grip on the strap again.

Daryl ducks his head, slides inside, and hits the seat with a thump. His knees are practically in his face because he's still got his huge backpack on. He wriggles out of it, throws it onto the backseat of the extended cab along with his crossbow, grabs hold of the passenger door handle, and slams it shut before throwing himself back against the headrest with an exhilarated laugh.

His laugh makes Carol smile, even though her heart is still racing. "That was close," she says.

"Ain't been that close in  _months_."

She watches the trailing herd disappear in the rearview mirror. "Did you miss it?"

"Little bit."

"We lost your handgun, though. And some of the food that was in that box you brought in. And an entire  _barrel_  of wine."

Daryl reaches over and puts a hand on her knee. "But we ain't lost us."

She smiles and lowers her hand to take hold of his. "No. We've still got us."

[*]

Michonne tells Rick not to tell anyone, but by mid-morning,  _everyone_  knows. Even Judith, who doesn't really understand and keeps demanding, "New baby now!"

"I wish you wouldn't have gone blabbing," Michonne tells him as she rests another pike against the tree near his sawing table. "I'm maybe seven weeks along."

Rick's sawing by hand now because their power pack has died. "Sorry. I'm a proud papa, what can I say?"

"You could say  _nothing_."

"You should go in and rest," he says. "You've been carving pikes for two hours."

"I'm fine. I feel good today. Not nauseous at all." It's amazing how much better she feels now that Rick knows, and he's happy, and he's taken charge of planning for this baby's arrival. It almost makes her wonder if all that nausea was nervousness instead of morning sickness.

Rick's radio crackles and from the stand Rosita says, "Javier's coming up the road. I'm switching out with Morgan in the stand. I'll handle Javier."

Michonne smiles and positions her carving knife against the wood. "Oh, she'll  _handle_  him all right."

[*]

The fire has died down when Carol and Daryl reach the Hilltop. A few flames flicker here and there in isolated piles. Smoke hovers like a thinning gray cloud in the air. The brick of the mansion house and the metal frames of a few charred vehicles still stand, as does a single section of the sheet-metal covered fence, but all else is rubble.

The walkers that coated the Hilltop like ants on a mound when they first returned from their supply run are gone now. Burnt and feasted-upon bodies litter the black and brown ground – horse and human, friend and enemy. The couple, examining the fallen, begins to weave its way between the bodies.

They are the living, walking among the dead.


	24. Chapter 24

Rick is the first to greet Javier, who frowns and says, "I thought Rosita was the trade representative."

"She is," Rick replies. "She's coming down from the stand now. But I wanted to ask – do you have a doctor at Dead End?"

"We have a guy who was an EMT with the volunteer fire department. Another who was a paramedic with the Loudon County police. We have a former army medic, and a veterinarian."

"Which is the best at delivering babies?"

"None of them. That would be Amos's eldest daughter Dolly. She was a midwife for years. She's delivered a hundred babies. Though only two since the Epidemic."

"Ask Amos what he would charge for her services."

Javier shakes his head. "De ninguna manera."

"What's that mean?"

"It means Amos isn't going to let his daughter off his land. And he isn't going to let a stranger  _on_  it. So you can forget about that, amigo. But I suppose congratulations are in order?"

"There's really no chance? Even if we offered …" Rick can't think of what they would offer.

"I suppose time could soften his position," Javier says, "but Amos is not a fan of you Hillcrest people. Not after you brought those men to our doorstep. He wanted to cut off trade with you. Mason and I are the ones pushing to continue it."

"Well, I appreciate that."

Rosita strolls up beside Rick. She puts a hand on one hip and looks Javier over languidly. "I thought you weren't coming until Carol got back with those vitamins for your niece."

He smiles. "I thought I'd make an advance."

Rosita raises an eyebrow.

"An advance of supplies," clarifies Javier, half-bowing his head to her. "In expectation of the vitamins."

Rosita shoots Rick a look that makes it abundantly clear he should go away, so he steps back, turns on his heels, and returns to his work.

[*]

Daryl stops walking. "Think this one's Caitlyn. Had that gold heart necklace."

"You notice things like that?" Carol asks.

"Notice things," he says. "Period." He continues walking and then stops again. "Fuck."

Carol comes and stands beside him. At his feet lies a corpse that has been charred beyond recognition. But a silver cross – now scorched black - still dangles from its neck.

"Father Gabriel," Carol whispers. Rick already told her he caught fire, but seeing the grisly remains is another thing. She grits her teeth and struggles to steady her emotions. "He never had a chance."

"Poor blind bastard," Daryl mutters.

Shoulders drooped, they walk on. They're able to identify Siddiq by the charred and mangled remains of the stethoscope that must have been in the pocket of his coat, which has since burned up. Carol breathes in, closes her eyes, and exhales before walking on.

Daryl slows to a stop beside a body that has been spared the flames but not the walkers. Still, a small amount of flesh and muscle remains, and it's clear the body was shot before it was devoured. "Pretty sure this one's Eugene."

He looks across the scorched graveyard and walks on before crouching down to examine two chewed-up and toasted bodies that lie stomach-down atop one another. He fishes something out from beneath the skeletal remains. The object is singed and coated with hard, dried, black soot, but he recognizes it. He tries to push the lid open, but it's corroded, caked shut by the fire.

"What is it?" Carol asks.

Daryl stands. "Dwight's lighter."

She looks down in confusion at the two bodies.

"Think that's Sherry under 'em. Think he shielded her from gunfire. Tried to take all the bullets for 'er. But a couple went through 'em and hit her anyhow." Daryl looks down at Dwight's body on Sherry's. Here lies the man he once sought so desperately to kill, and now all he feels is loss saddled with regret. He slips the lighter silently into his pocket and walks on.

[*]

Javier leads Rosita around to the tailgate of his pick-up. "Say trick or treat."

"What?"

"Say it. It's almost Halloween."

Rosita shakes her head. "Fine. Trick or treat."

He pulls down the tailgate. "Happy Halloween!"

The portable power pack she recognizes. But the other thing…"What is it?"

"That's the portable electric pump. I can run it using that power pack and pump out the sludge from your septic tank. You've been here less than a week, but who knows what was already in it. Better do it now."

"And then can you take our dead power pack and recharge it from your solar bay?"

He nods. "And I'll leave you this one in the meantime. It should still have a third of its power left after we…." He smiles and his coffee brown eyes twinkle "… _pump_."

"A full third?" asks Rosita as she pulls the power pack out of the bed. "I think a  _really_  powerful pump would drain  _all_  of the energy." She walks ahead of him, swaying her hips slightly, and making sure he gets a good view of her ass.

[*]

They've walked through the graveyard of bodies twice now. Daryl thinks he's found the former Savior Alden, based on the etching on a nearby handgun that was partially spared the flames. He's pretty sure he's found the Hilltop guard Kal, too, judging from the color of the little remaining skin that clings to his bones. But he can't make heads or tails of any of the other bodies. The faces are unrecognizable, the flesh gnawed off or burnt up or both, and there is no more jewelry or lighters or other tokens they can use to make educated guesses.

They do find some more guns, but they are charred or half-melted and look so common that they could belong to anyone. He recognizes one of Maggie's rifles – but it's on the brick base of the burned-down mansion - nowhere near a body. She must have fled the burning house before she could get to the weapon. He knows from Enid that she organized a bucket brigade before ordering the evacuation. But if one of the bodies near the well is hers, he can't tell.

For several minutes now, Daryl has been standing and studying the earth like an astronomer with his eye glued to a telescope as he waits for a once-in-a-lifetime comet to pass.

"Can you make out any tracks?" Carol asks, and the hope in her voice twists his heart into an awful knot.

He doesn't answer.

He doesn't want to tell her that he can't make out the sign, that it's been walked over a hundred times now by dozens upon dozens of feasting monsters, until he can't tell walker from man.

So he walks away from her. He stops and crouches to scrutinize the earth, hoping against hope that it will yield its secrets. But it doesn't.

When she draws close, he stands and walks away again.

He circles around to the same place.

He walks east.

He walks west.

He walks north.

He walks south.

Carol comes close.

_Too close._

"Anything?" she asks, and her voice sounds like it did every time he came back empty handed from his search for Sophia. "Anything at all?"

He chews his bottom lip instead of answering. He walks on…moving his feet faster…gritting his teeth…trying to outpace her. He thinks of all those phantom tracks he followed in his futile search for Sophia…he thinks of Carol's fallen face every time he stepped into that RV without her little girl beside him.

And then, suddenly, he  _does_  see something.

Daryl stops.

He raises his arm and gestures Carol over. When she's by his side, he points down at the partial boot print. Not big enough to be a man's. A  _boy's_  boot print.

[*]

Javier has accessed the septic tank and gotten the pump up and running, and Aaron is now supervising the process of making sure the sludge is pumped through the corrugated tubing to the leach field.

Javier asks if he can wash up, and Rosita leads him to the second-floor hall bathroom across form her bedroom. "Water's cold," she tells him. "We don't have heaters like you. But there's hand sanitizer in there too."

When he comes out, she's standing in the open doorframe of her bedroom, an arm stretched upward, which pulls her breasts into a pert, popped-up position. It works. His eyes are all over them, at least for a moment, before he catches himself and drags them up to her face.

"You want to come in and fix my broken window?" she asks.

He nods.

Rosita saunters into the room, walks to the side of her full-size bed, and turns to face him, her legs pressed back against the bed.

"So…" Javier asks as he follows her inside. "The window won't open or what?"

Rosita rolls her eyes. "The window's fine. I had five brothers. You think I don't know how to fix a broken window?"

Javier smiles. "So then why am I here, hermosa? In your  _bedroom_?"

"I'll give you three guesses," she replies. "And the first two don't count."

"Finalmente." Javier kicks the door shut behind himself. "I thought I was going to have to fix five more things first." He strides over to her, grasps her by her hips, lifts her, and tosses her roughly onto the bed.

Rosita lets out a surprised yelp, followed by a laugh. She pushes herself up into a half sitting position just as Javier begins to bend possessively over her. Rosita seizes him by his shirt collar and yanks him down into a violent kiss.

[*]

Walking sideways, scouring the ground, Daryl follows hints Carol cannot see. And though she cannot see what he can see, she trusts him. She trusts him, and she follows.

She follows him all the way to the door of the underground root cellar. It's an iron door, situated in cinderblock, and it hasn't been consumed by the fire. Carol's eyes fall on the gray-black handle.

She thinks of that barn door back on the Greene family farm. She thinks of the iron latch lifted, the door opened, the walkers streaming out. She thinks of each one falling in blast after blast. She thinks of the deafening silence that followed the gunfire before one last walker lurched out into the sunlight, shielding its eyes against the brightness.

Carol thinks of shouting her daughter's name… of running toward the creature that was once Sophia…of Daryl catching her as she runs…Daryl falling to the earth behind her…falling with her…holding her back… holding her in place.

She thinks of that barn door, and she doesn't know if she can do it. She doesn't know if she can open the door to this cellar.

"Want me?" Daryl asks softly.

Carol slowly shakes her head. "No. I'll do it."

Daryl readies his crossbow and points it in a protective, covering position.

Carol steadies her resolve, strides forward three paces, and seizes the heavy iron handle of the door. It creaks open with a loud squeal and lands with a thud. She shouts down into the dark depths: "Henry?"


	25. Chapter 25

"Carol?" comes a responding cry.

"Henry!" she shouts back. Carol falls gratefully to her knees before the open root cellar. "Yes. It's me!"

"I can't get up the ladder! I think my leg is broken."

Carol turns and puts one foot down the cellar and finds the first rung of the ladder.

"Careful!" Henry calls. "The fourth rung is broken."

Carol makes her cautoius way down. Henry has clicked on a flashlight and sits with his back against the cinderblock wall of the cellar. His lower leg is misshapen, the ankle bent out. It's clearly broken, but he's just as clearly alive.

Carol gathers the sobbing boy into her arms and sobs with him.

[*]

Ezekiel strolls into the library and quickly looks away when he sees Nabila is nursing. She scurries to grab the nursing blanket off the back of the rocking chair and covers herself. She clears her throat, alerting him that it's safe to come in. He takes another step inside. "Enid and I cleared the southeast field," he says.

Gracie is standing in the play pen, holding the rail, and bouncing at her knees while Judith hangs upside down on the couch. When Judith sees Ezekiel, she puts her palms flat on the floor and pushes herself into a backward roll. He lunges forward and catches her leg before it can smack the coffee table, and then he helps her to stand up.

"Where Unca D?" she asks.

"He'll be home in day or two. Or three," Ezekiel assures her and sits down in an arm chair. "Hershel Glenn's a hungry little bugger, isn't he?" he asks Nabila.

"No more than usual," she replies. "They eat frequently at this age."

"Well, if you desire a respite when you're done feeding him, I shall assume the child wrangling duties."

Nabila chuckles. "I could use a bath. I haven't had one yet. And we have water now."

Rosita's voice drifts through the open vent on the library ceiling, the same vent that is on the floor of her bedroom:  _Fuck yes!_

Judith cranes her neck back and looks up at the ceiling.

The squeaking of box springs punctuates Rosita's words –  _Yes! Oh yes! Oh fuck yes!_

Nabila's dark skin flushes a reddish-brown. "Would you mind shutting that vent, Your Highness?"

Ezekiel stands, rolls the ladder that's attached to the built-in bookcase until it's nearer the vent. As he climbs it, Javier's voice drifts through the vent, in a Spanish growl spewing dirty words Ezekiel cannot translate. He stretches his arm out to reach the vent, and just as Rosita cries  _Fuck yes!_ again, he flicks it shut.

The sounds die to a muffled murmur.

"F-F-Fuck!" Judith cries. "Fuck wes!"

"Oh, dear," Nabila says.

[*]

Between the two of them, Carol and Daryl get Henry out of the underground cellar and to the truck. They splint his leg using sticks and the medical supplies they picked up at the pharmacy aisle of the general store in Clifton. While he sits on the tail gate and eats a ding dong Carol has offered him, Henry tells them what happened.

The boy was divided from the others by fire and, to avoid the gun shots, he ran for the root cellar, lowered himself in, and closed the door over himself.

"That was clever thinking," Carol tells him.

But partway down the ladder, a rung snapped, and he plummeted to the earth, breaking his leg when he hit it. He passed out from the pain, and maybe from the smoke seeping down into the cracks around the door. He came to sometime the next day. "At least I think it was the next day. I was so hungry and thirsty. But there's those big blue water storage containers down there. And the vegetables." Henry smiles. "You used to ask what it would take to get me to eat my vegetables. Well…"

Carol chuckles.

Henry stayed down there for the next few days, while the fire burned above and the walkers feasted. He lived off of the vegetables and the water jugs. He dug a latrine in the far corner to bury his waste. If he had spent much longer down there, he probably would have become sick.

Carol feels guilty for not hastening back to the Hilltop. Two nights she made them spend winding their way to Dead End winery, and instead of pressing on last night, she asked Daryl to stay at that winery. Counting the night of the attack, and their night at Hillcrest Vineyard that means the poor boy has been surviving alone in that dark root cellar for five nights straight.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "I should have come looking for you sooner!"

"The walkers didn't give up until yesterday evening anyway," Henry replies. "I don't think you could have gotten to me. They were at the door, gnashing and clawing, dozens of them, I think. Day after day. Night after night. And then finally…they just moved on. I tried climbing out this morning when I didn't hear them anymore, but…I couldn't do it with the broken leg." He makes a fist and flexes his arm. "I need to build my arm strength."

"Kid's fine," Daryl assures Carol. "Like he said. Couldn't of gotten to 'em 'fore. Fire still 'round. Walkers, too. But we got 'em  _now_."

"I  _knew_  you'd come back for me!" Henry says. He chokes. "I'm so glad you were out when it happened. I couldn't stand the thought of losing  _everyone_."

"Oh, honey!" Carol puts her arm around him. "We're not alone. We have a new camp now. And Rick and Michonne are there. Judith and Gracie and H.G. Rosita and Jesus and Aaron. Ezekiel. Nabila and Enid, too."

Henry's mouth falls open and a breathy laugh escapes him. "And Maggie?"

Carol swallows and looks away. Henry's mouth closes. He looks across the Hilltop at all the fallen bodies. "We have to bury her."

"We don't even know which one is her," Carol says.

[*]

Javier snaps the tailgate closed. The pump and dead power pack are in his bed. He turns to face Rosita and leans back against the truck. "I'll be back in two days with the power pack recharged. See if Carol has those vitamins."

"Two days?" she asks with a raised eyebrow. "Think you can hold out that long?"

"I have a farm of my own to manage, you know."

She steps closer and toys with the second button on his red checkered shirt. "Just wasn't sure if you could last."

"I think maybe you're the one who's not sure."

She scoffs and lets go of the button. "I'm a sex camel. I can go for  _months_."

He smirks. "Well, maybe you  _used_  to be a sex camel. But after just one ride on the Javier Express…" He wiggles his eyebrow.

"Don't flatter yourself."

Javier kisses her cheek. "I had a good time," he whispers in her ear. "I think maybe you did, too, hermosa."

Rosita steps back and crosses her arms over her chest. "I wasn't bored," she says.

He chuckles. "Hasta luego. Buena suerte with the fence and the farm." He walks around to the front door of the truck and hefts himself inside.

Rosita walks past the driver's side and throws a dismissive wave over her shoulder, but she's grinning when Javier backs out.

[*]

Daryl and Carol dig one deep grave and stack all the bodies they recognize within it. It's too much work for the two of them to dig a separate grave for each body, but Henry ties sticks together to make individual crosses for each person. Not all the forest around the Hilltop burned up. There are still some living limbs to mark the dead.

They erect a fresh cross for Glenn, too, because his has burned to ash. They recognize which grave is his, however, because Hershel's blackened watch rests atop it. Carol scoops it up and slides it into her pocket – for Maggie. She hasn't given up hope just yet. One of these bodies might be hers, but, then again,  _none_  of them might be. Counting the bodies doesn't help either, because some of the dead probably turned and wandered off before their brains could be burned up or eaten out.

Daryl can't find anymore tracks – they've been so walked over so many times. They discuss moving on to Oceanside. "We need to warn those women that there's a headquarters in Norfolk and that the men who attacked them were a part of a larger group," Carol reasons.

Daryl hems and haws about it. "Need to get the kid back. Don't owe them ladies nothin'."

"We took their guns for the War Against the Saviors. I think we owe them  _something_."

"Ratted us out," Daryl mutters. "Sent them attackers our way."

"Because those attackers captured and tortured one of them."

"Ya wouldn't of given 'em up."

"Maybe not," Carol says. "Though I don't know what I might do in that situation. I can't judge."

"They ain't our problem."

"They might  _know_  something," Carol reasons. "And maybe…" She doesn't dare voice her hope, that maybe none of those bodies on the Hilltop is Maggie, that maybe Maggie made her way to Oceanside and was taken in. "I want to go. We're here. We're near. We should go. And they have a doctor. Maybe they can do more for Henry's leg than a cheap general store splint."

"Fine," Daryl agrees. He looks at Henry. "Wanna go on a beach vacation, kid?"


	26. Chapter 26

Daryl parks on the gravely shore of an inlet that serves as a shortcut to Oceanside. When the truck engine dies, the sound of water can be heard lapping against the nearby dock. Two tied rowboats rock gently on the black surface of the water. "Stay with Henry," Carol tells Daryl. "I'll row over myself."

"Don't like ya goin' it alone."

"Well, they don't like men." The Hilltop always sent women to trade. Well, women and – sometimes - Aaron.

"Thought ya wanted to get help for Henry!"

"I'll bring the doctor back here if she decides she's willing. But you know how they are."

"What 'm s'posed to do? Sit here and twiddle my damn thumbs?"

"You could play cards with Henry," she says as she exits out of the passenger's side. "There's a deck in my pack." She opens the door to the extended cab and slides out the AR-15 that is on the floor. Henry sits with both legs up on the bench seat. "Be good for Daryl," she tells him.

Daryl jumps down from the driver's side and paces around the front of the truck as she heads to the boat. "So 'm the babysitter now?"

"For the time being, yes," she says as she shoulders her rifle, steps down into the rowboat, and situates herself. She grasps the oars. "Untie me, will you?"

"We ain't even got walkies. Ain't gonna know 's happenin' to you. Can't reach me if ya need to."

"I won't need to. Untie me."

Daryl grunts with frustration, but he unravels the rope from the dock. "If yer gone more 'n two hours," he calls after her as she rows away, "'m comin' after ya!"

"Yes, Daddy!" she calls back and Daryl shakes his head and walks back to the truck, where Henry, with the door to the extended cab still open, sits waving the pack of cards. "You ever play Go Fish?" he asks.

"Ain't playin' no dumbass kids game," Daryl mutters. "Yer learnin' five card stud, boy."

[*]

"So, when are you going to pop?" Rosita asks Michonne as she drives the pick-up down to the fence line just below the tasting room where Rick, Morgan, and Tara are hard at work. The bed is full of spiked planks and welded stacks of sheet metal.

"I'm not sure. Probably late May or early June."

Rosita jerks the truck to a stop, hops out, and goes around to the bed and begins untying the ropes that hold the material in place. She takes one end of a large piece of sheet metal while Michonne takes the other.

As they begin to slide it out, Rick comes around to the back of the truck. "I'll get that," he insists, putting his hands on the metal just above Michonne's. "You shouldn't be lifting anything heavy."

Michonne smacks his hand away. "I can  _handle_  it."

Rick holds his hands up and takes a step back.

[*]

Carol drags the row boat onto shore and approaches the line in the sand. It's not a literal line, but she knows the fallen, hollowed out log that marks it.

There's something new beyond the log, separating the shore from the forest: eleven pikes rooted in the sand. Each pike is positioned about three feet apart, and atop each one sits a decapitated human head.

The wooden spikes pierce the brains of the men and emerge from their scalps. The dead, glassy eyes stare straight at Carol, a grisly warning to any who might dare cross into the woods.

[*]

Henry peeks at his card, which is face down on the open tailgate of the truck. He sits with his broken leg stretched out on the other side of the betting pile and his good leg dangling down, while Daryl merely stands and leans back against the tailgate. The boy has two pairs showing, but Daryl has three of a kind, with his third nine hidden face down.

"I can't remember," Henry says. "What it's called again when you have three of one kind and two of another?"

"Full house."

"Is that good?" Henry asks innocently.

"Yeah. Beats every damn thing 'cept four of a kind, a straight flush, and a royal flush."

"Oh, okay. Then I'll raise you half a shell, a skipping stone,  _and_  a penny." Henry pushes them all in the pot.

"Hell," Daryl mutters. "I fold!" He slides his cards together and shuffles them back into the deck.

Henry grins. "Too bad I don't  _have_  a full house." He scoops all the rocks and seashells and coins in the pot toward himself.

"Shit, kid," Daryl says with a thin smile, "don't  _tell_  me that next time. I wouldn't of known ya was bluffin'." He folds Henry's cards into the deck and deals out one face down and one face up to each of them.

"Ante up," Henry says and slides a rock into the pot.

Daryl flips his own rock in like a coin. "I'm glad yer alive, kid."

"Yeah, I know," Henry says matter-of-factly. "Because Carol would be really sad if I was dead. And you love Carol."

Daryl's hand freezes on the card he's about to look at. How in the hell did the kid know  _that_? Daryl didn't even know that about himself until some time last night. "Yeah," he agrees. "Yeah. Do love Carol. But that ain't the only reason I'm glad yer alive."

"It's not?"

"Nah. I really been lookin' forward to kickin' yer ass at poker."

Henry laughs, peeks at his card, and says, "Too bad, then. Because I've got a pair of aces already."

[*]

The book  _Lord of the Flies_  keeps creeping into Carol's mind as she stands rooted in the sand studying the heads. They're  _fresh_. They can't be more than a day old.

For a moment, she considers turning around and going back, but in the end she decides to let out a birdlike whistle in a pattern that rises and falls and rises again. It's the whistle Hilltop traders always give when they come to exchange goods with Oceanside.

There's silence, and then the trees that line the shore rustle, and three armed women emerge between the pikes.

"Carol," Cyndie, says. She looks over Carol's shoulder at the empty rowboat. "I see you didn't come to trade."

Carol's eyes go from Cyndie to Beatrice to Kathy. "I came to talk. About the men who attacked Oceanside and the Hilltop."

"Are you alone?" Cyndie asks.

"Daryl is back at the dock, with a boy, Henry. The boy's leg is broken."

Beatrice tilts her head and confers with Cyndie. Cyndie nods. "Go back," Cynide tells Carol. "Bring Daryl and the boy over. We'll treat the boy. We'll feed you dinner. You can stay the night. But  _only_  the night."

[*]

Aaron has taken watch during dinner.

"He's anxiously awaiting the return of Jesus," Ezekiel says as he cuts his canned Vienna sausage into smaller bites.

Nabila chuckles.

Tara reaches for her can of Sprite, which came from the arcade vending machine. "I hope he brings back some wine."

"If not, I can probably get Javier to bring us some," Rosita says.

Nabila glances at Ezekiel, and both dip their heads to their plates and hide their smiles.

"We're eventually going to have to give him something substantial in return," Morgan says, "for the help he's given us lately."

"Oh, he's getting  _plenty_ ," Rosita assures him.

Morgan eyes her over the rim of his can of Coke as he takes a calculated sip. He sets it down with a clink. "I see."

"Don't judge," Rosita tells him.

Judith's eyes are ping ponging from adult to adult, but it's clear she doesn't follow their conversation well.

"If I were you, Rosita," Morgan says, "I wouldn't expect to milk that cow forever."

Rick raises his can of Orange Crush to his lips.

"I don't  _need_  to milk it forever," Rosita replies. "Just long enough to get us through the winter."

"Fuck wes!" Judith exclaims, and orange soda comes spewing out of Rick's mouth.

[*]

Daryl and Henry are sitting on the tailgate and playing five card stud when Carol docks. Daryl walks over, ties her boat, and helps her up. Carol fills him in and says, "Let's bring the bottle of wine and a few liters of soda for trade. And a full box of the ding dongs."

"Not the  _ding dongs_!" Henry pleads.

Carol ignores him. "We can probably get ammo for them. And then we can get fresh food for the ammo from Dead End."

Henry seems even more disappointed to have to quit the card game than he was about the ding dongs. Daryl rows Henry ashore in the second rowboat and then drags the boat onto the sand with Henry still in it. Carol tries to get the boy to look away from the heads on the pikes, but Henry can't stop staring at them.

Daryl whispers to her, "When'd they go all  _Heart of Darkness_?"

"About the same time we all did, I suppose."

**[*]**

Aaron watches the pick-up truck climb the hill and can just make out the familiar vanity license plate: BIGDIK. He wonders how the original owner got that one past the DMV. Aaron quickly climbs down the ladder of the watch stand and jogs to greet the approaching supply runner. "Bring me anything special?" he asks as Jesus shuts the driver's side door.

Jesus opens his long, black, London fog coat and reaches into the deep inside pocket. He hands Aaron a box of condoms.

"I don't think we're going to need these," Aaron says. "Unless you've got a history of STDs you're not telling me about."

"Look  _inside_  the box."

Aaron does. It's full of rare baseball cards.

Jesus smiles. "You told me you collected them when you were a kid."

Aaron laughs. "Yeah. But I used to hide my condoms in my card boxes, not the other way around."

"Come on." Jesus jerks his head toward the back of the truck.

When Aaron gets to the bed, he see it's overflowing to the point that Jesus has had to tie the stuff down with three bungee cords. There's six red, five-gallon gas cans, a large blue Dillion precision reloading press, several boxes containing bottles of gunpowder, at least twenty firearms, and lots of green metal cases full of – "Ammo?" Aaron asks hopefully.

"Some have ammo, and some have reloading bullets and some just have spent brass. With the press we can reload. Between the existing ammo and what we can make…I think we're talking 4,000 rounds.  _Each._  Of three different calibers."

"Where in the - "

"- I went to all the other vineyards in a ten-mile radius."

"But Dead End looted them all," Aaron says.

"I found a false wall in the main house of one of them. And  _all_  of this was behind it. They  _missed_  it."

Aaron smiles and shakes his head.

"There's more in the cab," Jesus tells him. "More guns. Matches, kerosene, and bottled water."

"Did you find any prenatal vitamins?" Aaron asks.

"Not at  _that_  vineyard, but in three of the houses in Bluemont, I did. I got enough for twenty months for Javier's niece."

"I don't think she's an elephant," Aaron says.

Jesus chuckles. "Well, we can always use vitamins."

"Yeah," Aaron tells him. "For Michonne."

Jesus's eyebrow goes up under his black knit cap. "I miss  _all_  the gossip."


	27. Chapter 27

A pair of borrowed crutches leans against the wooden table. Henry, who now wears a sturdier splint, shovels the watery clam chowder into his mouth as if dinner were a race. "Slow down," Carol warns him. "You'll get sick."

"But it's meat. I haven't had meat in days."

"Ain't bad," Daryl tells Cyndie and slurps another spoonful of her soup. It's not much of a compliment, coming from Daryl. He always tells Carol her cooking is  _great_. Sometimes it's  _fantastic_. She's secretly pleased he doesn't feel the same way about another woman's cooking.

While Henry's leg was being re-splinted, there was a lot of whispering between Cyndie and Beatrice, and then Beatrice disappeared. She returns now, ducking into the hut. Behind her, someone else ducks down even lower to ease his way through the low doorframe, and then he stands at his full, broad height.

"Jerry!" Henry shouts. He drops his spoon and stands up on his one good leg before realizing he can't run. But the big, laughing man runs to him and encircles the boy with both arms. He lifts Henry up in a great big bear hug before depositing him on his chair again.

Carol rises and goes in for her own hug, while Daryl just stands and extends his hand, which gets shaken roughly and happily by the grinning man.

Then Jerry turns to the open door, says, "Come on, Dianne," and waves in the Kingdom's archer.

Carol looks over the quiver on the woman's shoulder, hoping to see Maggie behind her, but Dianne is the only one.

"It's good to see you three alive," Dianne says.

"Well, I'll leave you all to your dinner," Beatrice tells them, and then, to Cyndie: "Kim and Liz and Janet are on watch now."

As Beatrice leaves the hut, Cyndie gestures for everyone to sit and serves bowls of clam soup to Jerry and Dianne. Carol tells her old Kingdom friends who is still alive. Then Dianne tells their story of flight from the Hilltop.

The two escaped together on horseback. They made their way through the forest, away from the fire, and never saw any of Rick's signs. "We headed to Oceanside," Dianne says, "hoping others would think to do the same." They lost the horse to walkers a few miles away and had to come the rest of the way slowly on foot. They arrived yesterday morning.

Jerry smiles at Cyndie. "And they kindly took us in."

" _Temporarily_ ," Cyndie emphasizes. "Though I thank you for your help in the second invasion."

"Second invasion?" Carol asks.

"Last night, eleven more attackers showed up on our shores," Cyndie replies. "With help from Jerry and Dianne, we killed them all this time. We didn't let any escape, and none of ours were captured. But we had losses." She winces. "We buried seven of our own people this morning."

Daryl leans close to Carol. "Headquarters must of come lookin' already."

Carol nods. "There could still be more of these men in Norfolk," she tells Cyndie. Carol goes on to tell her about the letter, but omits any specific mention of Dead End Winery. Given that a captive of Oceanside gave up the Hilltop location to these attackers, she'd rather not mention their current neighbor's location.

"You should move," Dianne tells Cyndie. "They know where Oceanside is. They know their men came here and didn't come back. They don't know where our new camp is." She looks to Carol, who doesn't reveal the location. "We could join forces," Dianne continues. "If you bring your supplies, your guns, your ammunition…if you work alongside us at our new camp and help us farm and build, defend and protect, we can be stronger together than we are apart. We can - "

"- Hold up!" Daryl interrupts. "Ain't got the resources to support all these people where we's at!"

"People  _are_  resources," Dianne replies. "And if they bring – "

"- It doesn't matter," Cyndie tells her. "We've heard this song and dance about joining forces before. No thank you. We'll take our chances laying low here, defending what we've already built. We've done pretty well so far."

"You lost seven people yesterday," Dianne reminds her.

"And you lost  _everything_ ," Cyndie hisses. "And not for the first time, either. You lost the Kingdom, too." She points to Daryl and Carol. "They lost Alexandria. And now you've lost the Hilltop. Again and again, your people have lost. You think any of us want to hitch our wagon to  _that_?"

Daryl shifts uncomfortably in his wooden chair. Carol's hand tightens on her spoon.

"I was just thinking of the children here," Dianne says. "Of what might happen to them if that entire Norfolk camp comes looking for their lost men."

"Well I think they'll  _stop_  looking when they see those heads on the pikes," Cyndie says. "I think they'll realize they've met their match. They've probably  _already_  stopped looking. How many of their men are missing at this point anyway? Between the ones that were killed at the Hilltop, killed by your new neighbors, and killed by us?"

"Three dozen by now, probably," Carol answers.

Cyndie leans back in her chair. "Anyway, you don't have to worry about it. We can't give you up, because we don't know where your new camp is. If they  _do_  come? If they  _do_  defeat us? They'll move in here, happy as clams." She stabs her spoon into the bowl, scoops up a clam, and devours it.

Dianne watches silently.

[*]

Carol has a fitful sleep on a cot under the roof of Cyndie's hut. She's happy about their newfound friends, but disappointed and saddened that Maggie was not among them. She's also strangely angry at herself, as if not finding Maggie was somehow  _her_  failing.

They leave Oceanside at the first hint of sunrise, with four boxes of ammunition. "I thought we'd get more for the ding dongs and soda," Henry grumbles. If Carol knew about the stash Jesus found, she wouldn't have made the trade, but, as far as she knows, their supplies of ammunition are running low.

Carol lets Jerry have the front passenger seat while Daryl drives, and she sits in the extended cab, with the boy's broken leg stretched out on her lap as he leans back against Dianne.

"How far away is this new camp?" Jerry asks.

"That all depends on the obstacles," Carol says. But they know which routes to avoid now, and she has no desire to delay their journey this time. They won't be stopping to loot or scavenge in half a dozen places. There will be no romantic dinners or overnight stays. They're heading straight home, by the shortest, most unobscured route possible. "We could be there in as little as three hours."

**[*]**

"Babe," insists Rick, putting a hand on Michonne's lower arm as she starts to drag another pike out of the bed of the pick-up. "Why don't you head on up and take a break?"

"Rick, if I knew you were going to treat me like a precious piece of china I never would have  _told_  you I was pregnant. Remember how much Maggie did while she was pregnant?"

"Yeah," says, Rosita, who is grabbing a box of nails from the pick-up. "And H.G. was born almost a month early. And he was  _tiny_."

"Oh, you're siding with my husband now?" Michonne asks.

"I'm not siding with anyone," Rosita replies. "But it wouldn't hurt you to get some water and read a book for a while."

"Throw me a bone, babe," Rick pleads.

Michonne lets go of the pike and leaves it halfway out of the truck. "Fine. I'll go read that Toni Morrison novel I saw on the third shelf. Keep the kids from putting their fingers in any light sockets."

[*]

Daryl stands guard along the highway with his back to Henry as the boy pees over the shoulder. Inside the truck, Carol and Dianne are talking and Jerry is eating some beef jerky.

"Uh….Daryl," Henry says, and Daryl swirls and shoots the walker that is creeping out of the woods and toward the rail. Henry zips up. "Thanks. I'd have gotten it if I had my stick."

"Know ya would of," Daryl says.

Henry hops on one foot and bends down for his crutches, and then he hobbles up beside Daryl. "Where am I going to stay in this inn?" he asks. "Do I get my own room?"

"Might get the billiard room," Daryl tells him as they walk back. "If'n yer lucky."

"Billiard room?" he asks.

"Got a pool table. Leather couch. Fireplace. Got a table looks like a checker board. Checkers and chess pieces under it."

"Cool, I like chess. Ezekiel taught me. Will you teach me to play pool?"

"Hell ya think I can play for?" Daryl asks as Carol steps down from the truck to help Henry up and in the back seat.

"Play what?" Carol asks before she climbs up after Henry.

"Pool," Daryl grunts.

"Well, you  _do_  kind of look like a pool shark," Jerry says as Daryl climbs into the driver's seat.

"Daryl can't even win at air hockey," Carol says.

Daryl turns around and points a finger at her. "'Cause ya cheated."

Carol flutters her eyelashes innocently.

"There's an air hockey table at this Inn, too?" Henry asks with excitement.

[*]

Nabila finishes breastfeeding H.G. and lowers him, sleeping, into the pack n' play. "He's such an easy baby," she says. "He'll sleep for a good two hours now."

As Nabila leaves to help Ezekiel with the continued clearing of the fields, Michonne grabs her book, kicks off her shoes, and settles on the couch. Judith and Gracie go to town with extra thick crayons on large sheets of paper that cover the coffee table, in wild scrawls of random color. Michonne doesn't even have to retrieve Gracie when the girl toddles slowly away from the table, or when she drops to her knees and crawls toward the lowest shelves of books, because, whenever she does, Judith tells her, "No, Gray-cee! No! Bad Gray-cee! No! Come back!" And, miraculously enough, the eleven-month-old complies.

Michonne has just turned a page of her book when the radio Dead End gave them crackles, and a calm, southern drawl comes through: "This is Mason Weatherford. To whom do I have the pleasure of speakin'?"

She picks up the radio and hits the button. "Michonne Grimes."

"Good mornin', Mrs. Grimes," he replies. "I have a young gentlemen here before me who has made the mistake of crossin' our stop sign. He claims to have been invited to settle at Dead End winery should the urge ever strike him. I'm wonderin' if perhaps he's one of yours?"

"Who?" Michonne asks.

"What's your name again, son?" Michonne can't hear the man's response, but Mason's voice is clear: "Elijah."

Enid mentioned being rescued, but she never referred to her rescuer by name, and the fact does not occur to Michonne at the moment. She draws the radio to her mouth, clicks the button, and says, "I don't know anyone named Elijah."

When she lets go of the button, she can hear shotguns pumping one by one.


	28. Chapter 28

The bullet-pierced sign for Dead End Winery comes into view. "Our vineyard is just a few miles beyond this one," Carol tells Jerry, Dianne, and Henry. "There were already people living here. They don't take newcomers on their land, but they will trade with us."

"Do they have anything worth trading for?" Jerry asks.

Carol laughs. "Plenty. In fact," she leans between the front seats, "since we have the folic acid for Javier's niece, and we're already here, maybe we should turn in?"

Daryl is slightly past the entrance road to Dead End now. He slows the truck, throws it into reverse, and backs up a few yards before turning onto the dirt road. He stops well before the stop sign this time and looks with wide-eyes through the windshield.

There, halfway over the hidden spikes, with both of its front tires blown out, sits the blood bus. Elijah kneels on the dirt road with his hands at the back of his head. Javier and Mason both have their rifles trained on him, and three more men form a half circle around the young man. Each of those men pumps a shotgun to chamber a round, and then they point their loaded guns straight at Elijah.

Daryl slams open the door of the truck and leaps down. Waving his arms and shouting, he runs forward. "Don't shoot!" he cries. "Don't shoot! He's one of ours!"

[*]

Michonne looks up from the radio to see Enid standing in the open door of the library.

"Did you say Elijah?" Enid asks.

"Mason just radioed that someone named Elijah has crossed their – "

Enid runs across the library floor and lunges for the radio. She jams the button down. "Wait!" she cries. "Wait! Don't shoot him! Wait! I know him! Wait! Please wait!"

When she lets go of the button, there's silence on the radio, so Enid repeats her plea again.

And again.

Three times.

Finally, Mason's voice comes back on: "Well, now, as luck would have it, your friends Mr. and Mrs. Dixon just stopped by, and they've informed me of the situation. Young Elijah is just fine. I'll be sending him your way shortly. Over and out."

[*]

The Dead Enders have lowered their weapons. Dianne and Carol are out of the truck and at the stop sign now, though Jerry remains inside the vehicle with Henry.

"Go check that bus, Javier," Mason says.

When Javier jogs over to the blood bus, Elijah, who is now standing up, runs his hand nervously over his mouth. "Uh…" He looks anxiously at the bus but falls silent when Javier disappears inside.

Mason tips his hat to Dianne. "Ma'am, that's an intriguing longbow you've got there. Do you find it useful?"

She looks Mason over warily. "I've killed with it," she says matter-of-factly. "Man and animal. And it's easier to make arrows than bullets."

"Is it?"

Dianne eyes him coolly. "I think so."

"I've got about 2,000 rounds of ammunition for this rifle. How many arrows have you got?"

"Enough," she answers.

Javier jumps out of the back of the bus. "There's a live woman in there," he growls as he unshoulders his rifle and marches forward. "She looks beat up. And she's unconscious." He points his rifle at Elijah and rests his finger just above the trigger. "He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. He's like those refugees who rose up against us in the night. Murdered our brothers to rape their wives."

The other three Dead End men point their shotguns at Elijah again, who throws up his hands. Mason holds up a hand and gestures for them to lower their guns, which they don't. "Did you hurt her?"

"No!" Elijah swears. "I found her this morning when I was scavenging a farm for gas. She was in the barn. She'd been bit by one of the soulless in the foot." Elijah points to the bus and swallows. "She'd killed it, and then she amputated her own foot. When I found her, she was passed out. I brought her here," Elijah looks desperately at Carol, "because this is where you said you were going. And when she woke up for a little, she mentioned your names. She mentioned you and Daryl and Enid. She mentioned someone named Rick. And someone named…Glenn?"

Carol turns to Daryl with wide eyes.

"Maggie," he says, and together they bolt to the bus.

[*]

Maggie is in the blood bus, weak and fading in and out of consciousness. The stub where her left foot once was has been messily – and recently - cauterized.

"I stopped the bleeding," Elijah says when they come out of the bus. "But I think she needs a blood transfusion. She lost so much blood. I have strip tests for blood types in the bus. She's O negative, so she can only receive from O negative. I'm not. Is one of you?"

"No," Carol replies. "I'm A positive."

"I'm B something," Dianne answers.

"Dunno what I am," Daryl says.

"If you can get me out of here," Elijah looks at the Dead Enders who are eyeing him suspiciously but who have finally lowered their guns, "I can test you all. And one of you can give her blood."

[*]

While Daryl and Jerry quickly change one popped tire of the bus using Elijah's only spare, Mason sends Javier to get another tire from their storage barn. In the meantime, old man Amos shows up, armed and angry and shouting at Mason, "Why are all these people past our stop sign, and your weapons are all down?"

Mason paces over to talk to his father, tells the old man what's happening, and settles him down, but when Amos sees Javier returning with the tire, he demands compensation. "Not just for the tire, but for crossing our line! I want to see an entire box full of supplies, Mason! An entire box!"

"Yes, sir," Mason tells him.

"And then I want this bus," Amos continues, "and that pick-up, and all these people, the hell off my land!"

When Mason heads for the blood bus with a big empty cardboard box, Carol, fearing they'll lose whatever medical supplies they need to save Maggie, cries, "Wait! We've got plenty of things in our truck you can take!" She leads Mason around to the bed of their pick-up.

He packs the box loosely, so that it looks like it contains more than it does. He puts the vitamins for Javier's pregnant niece in there first. Then he adds an entire box of ding dongs, even though it's the open box with only one ding dong left inside. He takes two, eight-roll packages of toilet paper, which fill up a big space.

"Thank you," Carol whispers to him, and he pretends not to hear her. The only truly useful things he takes are children's Tylenol, children's Benadryl, and children's Advil. "Do you have kids?" she asks. It hadn't occurred to her. He seems a little old to be the father of a young child.

"I had three. My youngest is still alive. He's twenty. These are for my nieces and nephews. And the other children."

"You should be running this place," Carol suggests. "Instead of your father."

Mason smiles. "That's not how a patriarchy works, Mrs. Dixon. You have to let the patriarch be in charge." He closes the top of the box. "Or believe he is." Mason winks, lifts the box, and walks away.

[*]

When they're back at Hillcrest, Aaron hastily moves his few things into Jesus's bedroom so that Maggie can have his. Rick mutters to everyone who is standing anxiously in the hallway, "Get back." Then he and Jerry carry Maggie in and gently lie her down on the queen bed. She blinks, searches the familiar faces, says nothing, and closes her eyes.

[*]

Daryl steps down from the blood bus that is now parked a few yards from the front porch of the inn. Of the eight people who don't know their blood types, he was the first to be tested. As he comes down from the bus, Morgan enters it.

Daryl stands at the foot of the stairs to the porch where Carol is nervously awaiting the results. "Gotta hunt," he tells her.

"You don't," she says. "Not today. We have enough canned food to last us at least three weeks now."

"Kid says I ain't O negative. Can't help. Gotta hunt."

Carol nods with understanding and watches him vanish toward the woods. She hopes he can find peace there and that, when he returns, Maggie will have finished her transfusion.

[*]

Michonne and Nabila, who already knows their blood types are not O negative, watch over Maggie. She wakes up and smiles when Nabila lays H.G. on her chest. The baby roots for her once-familiar breast. With Nabila's help, Maggie tries to feed the infant, but he pulls away crying. Maggie sniffles and closes her own eyes.

"I hope her milk hasn't dried up," Michonne says. "It's been a few days since she last fed him."

"She's undernourished," Nabila reasons. "Maybe when she's had more to eat and drink. And she's had the blood transfusion."

Maggie opens her eyes again and strokes the soft hair of her infant, looks weakly up at Michonne and Nabila, and says her first clear words since they brought her in: "If I don't make it…you'll be his family?"

"We already are," Michonne assures her. "But you're going to make it."

[*]

Most of the camp now crowds the porch and waits for Elijah to emerge from the blood bus. The last three strips tests are still developing.

Three chances left.

Elijah steps down slowly, walks to the porch, and looks up at all the expectant faces standing there. He shakes his head. "No one," he says.

"No," insists Carol. "No!"

"I'm sorry," Elijah tells her.

"That cannot be," Ezekiel intones. "It must not be."

"It is."

"One of us has to be a match," Rick hisses.

"Only seven percent of the population has O negative blood," Elijah explains.

"And there are seventeen of us, not counting the babies!" Tara exclaims. "So one of us should have it!"

"I'm sorry," Elijah repeats. "But not even one of you is O negative."

"Fuck that!" Rosita yells. She grabs the Dead End radio from off Rick's belt and yells into it, "This is Rosita Espinoza from Hillcrest! Get me Javier Santos! Now!"

She releases the button, and the radio crackles. "Soy yo.¿Qué pasó, hermosa?"

Rosita begs Javier to ask around and find out if anyone at Dead End has O negative blood. "We'll give you anything you want for it!" she pleads. "Anything in trade! Anything at all! Please."


	29. Chapter 29

Fifteen minutes later, Javier's pick-up truck tears up the dirt road, kicking up dust and flying the now familiar white flag of trade.

The truck bounces to a stop beside the blood bus and the engine instantly dies. Mason vaults out of the passenger side, his steel-tipped, snakeskin cowboy boots hitting the stone walkway with a clink. He tips his hat to the crowd on the porch. "Howdy, Hillcresters. I hear tell I've got liquid gold runnin' in my veins."

[*]

Rosita leads Javier into the barn-like garage where Jesus parked his truck full of munitions. "Anything at all, huh?" Javier asks as he follows her inside.

Rosita surreptitiously unbuttons the top two buttons of her blouse as she walks ahead of him. She stops at the tailgate of the truck and subtly tugs down on her white undershirt until she's sure she'll be showing plenty of cleavage.

Then she lowers the tailgate to reveal the supplies, turns, and leans back suggestively against it. "See anything you like?" she asks.

[*]

"Just keep squeezing," Elijah tells Mason, who now lies next to Maggie on the queen bed in Aaron's old room. Blood flows from his vein to Maggie's. "I'll be back. I need to get something else from the bus." He squeezes past Carol in the doorway.

Carol checks on Maggie to make sure she's only drifted off to sleep and then pulls out the chair from the vanity, sets it next to Mason's side of the bed, sits down, and hands him an open bottle of Gatorade from the general store. He takes a sip. "Kind of you to keep me company, Mrs. Dixon," he says. "Though I don't know if your husband would appreciate it. Where is he, anyway? I was hoping he'd found some beer."

"Daryl is out hunting," she says. "And…you should probably know, since you keep calling me Mrs. Dixon…We  _are_  very much together. Daryl and I. But we aren't exactly  _married_."

"Well, it's close enough for government work, I reckon." He takes another sip and then sets the Gatorade down on the nightstand when his radio crackles.

Amos's voice comes through. "Mason," he barks. "Where are you? Your sister says you went to give  _blood_  to  _those people_? The people who brought armed men to our doorstep – you're giving them  _blood_  now?"

Mason unclips the radio from his belt. "Relax, Pa," he says. "They're paying us for it. I'm sure Javier is collecting some choice supplies even as we speak."

[*]

"Fuck, yes!" Rosita is bent over the tailgate, and the belt buckle that is now down around Javier's knees clangs as he drives into her from behind. "Oh, God," she moans, gripping the gap between the tailgate and the bed for perch as he thrusts harder. She didn't expect him to hit the  _exact right_  spot, at least, not more than once. "Fuck yes!"

"Oh, Rosita, you naughty…" Javier switches to Spanish.

Soon, there are no words at all - just a lot of animalistic grunting and, eventually, long, shuddering groans.

[*]

Mason squeezes the yellow happy face ball in his left hand. Elijah, who has returned, watches the blood flow and unkinks the tubing in one spot. "You don't have to squeeze so hard," he says.

Mason squeezes softly and then relaxes his hand. "My mother, God rest her soul, had a prosthetic foot," he tells Carol. "Diabetes led to nerve damage which led to skin ulcers which led to infection and…well…you get the picture. Nothing fancy. Just a metal prosthetic. But I think it's still in a closet somewhere. I'll take beer, flashlights, or more children's Benadryl for it, if your friend," he nods to the sleeping Maggie, "would like it."

"Thank you," Carol tells him. "That would be very helpful."

Still holding the ball, Mason scratches his cheek, which is lined with a faint, grayish-blonde stubble. "What's the name of that archer woman?"

"You mean Dianne?" Carol replies.

"Dianne," repeats Mason, lowering his hand and resuming his squeezing. "Is she married to the black gentleman who talks strangely?"

"Ezekiel?" Carol asks with a smile. "No. They're old friends. They've been in the same camp since almost the start."

"I don't think she cares for me much," Mason says.

"Dianne just has a stern expression," Carol assures him. "And she's reserved. And when she met you, you  _were_  holding a gun on a teenage boy."

"I'm twenty now," Elijah corrects her. "Not really a  _teenager_."

"Everyone under thirty looks like a kid to me," Mason says.

"Would you have shot me?" Elijah asks. "If Carol and Daryl hadn't shown up, would you have killed me?"

"Well now, that's neither here nor there." Masons squeezes the yellow ball. "That's all water under the bridge."

[*]

Rosita tucks her white tank top into the waistband of her jeans while Javier zips up and buckles his belt. They're still breathing hard. She goes to button her light blue overshirt and finds four of the buttons popped clear off. Only the two she undid herself at the top still remain intact. "Great! You ruined my shirt!"

"I'll get you another one. I'll get you a whole Walmart full of them."

"You think I shop at  _Walmart_?"

He laughs. "It's just a shirt."

"I  _like_  this shirt. I'm taking it out of the supplies." She nods to the truck. "So now you get a smaller pick."

He looks over the contents of the bed and whistles. "Where did you find all this?"

"Bluemont Vineyard."

"Mason and I looted that place a year ago."

"It was behind a false wall," she says. "Jesus has a way of finding things."

Javier's eyes fall on the Dillon Precision Press.

"You aren't getting that," Rosita tells him. "We  _need_  that."

"Relax. We've already got two. But the gun powder we could use." He slides two large jars to the side. Then he opens two of the green metal cases, examines the contents, and closes them. He slides one metal case toward himself. "And this case of .223 ammo." He slides the other one next to it. "And this case of reloading bullets."

"Whoa! No." Rosita shakes her head. "You can have a couple of the  _boxes_  of bullets that's are in that case. But not the whole case. That's half our bullets!"

"Look, Rosita…I can't go back to Amos with so little. He'll have my head on a platter. We didn't even tell him we were coming here. He's going to be pissed off enough as is."

"Fine, four boxes of bullets."

"That's not even  _half_  the case."

She slinks close and slides a hand in the back pocket of his jeans. Their bodies are almost touching. She kisses his ear and whispers, "Please? Next time you visit, I'll more than make it up to you."

Javier smiles. "You drive a hard bargain, hermosa."

After he takes the supplies and loads them into his own pick-up, she asks, "Are you staying for dinner?"

"Are you cooking?"

Rosita scoffs. "I don't cook."

"Why not?" he asks. "You do everything else."

"Trust me, there are far better cooks than me here."

"That spaghetti wasn't that impressive," he says.

"Yeah, well, that was Aaron. But Carol will cook tonight. And it'll be good. You should stay. I mean, if you want." She shrugs. "Not that I care."

"What are we having?" Javier asks.

Daryl has emerged from the woods and now comes weaving through the high grasses of one of the uncleared fields. His crossbow rides his back, and he holds something upside down by its feet: a wild turkey.

"It looks like we're having a very early Thanksgiving," Rosita replies.

[*]

Dianne pops her head inside Maggie's room. "Daryl's back from the hunt," she tells Carol. "He got a wild turkey. He asked you to come down and cook it."

Carol wonders if Daryl is asking her to come down to cook it because it's  _ready_  to be cooked, or because he doesn't like her spending time with Mason. When she stands, Mason asks Dianne, "Are you going to keep me company now?"

Dianne looks him over placidly. "I'm needed on watch," she says and leaves.

"See," Mason says. "She doesn't like me."

Carol smiles. "Elijah can keep you company."

"Yes, he can," Mason replies, "but he's not a pretty lady."

[*]

As he washes his hands using cold water from the hand pump, Daryl eyes Javier, who is plucking the turkey with Rosita on a nearby picnic table behind the Inn. They're talking in Spanish and Rosita is laughing on and off. Daryl can't quite figure out if her laugh is fake. Sometimes he thinks she's just stroking Javier's ego, but sometimes it sounds like he might be sincerely amusing her. Daryl can only make out every fifth word, using the little Spanish he picked up those three years he worked construction in Macon.

Javier says something about Rosita's brother, and then something about American football, and he takes a step back and pretends to be throwing, and then pretends to trip. Rosita laughs and shakes her head.

"This bird ain't gonna pluck itself," Daryl grumbles.

Rosita catches Javier's eye, says something in Spanish, and Javier snorts. Daryl's pretty sure he's being made fun of.

"Sorry, amigo," Javier tells him. "No more funny business."

"Gonna get a cleaver," Daryl mutters as he walks away.

He finds Carol in the kitchen, which is bigger than any kitchen he's ever seen outside a restaurant. There's a wooden, bench-like table that looks like a servant's tables in an English period piece movie. Copper and steel pots hang above the stove. Wooden molds decorate the walls. Carol is mixing spices for a dry rub in a small silver bowl on the island counter. The inn, fortunately, has three good grills out back – a large propane one and two smaller charcoal grills.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey yourself."

"How's Maggie? Rosita said Elijah found a blood match. Mason." He pulls the cleaver out of a big wooden block. "And you was sittin' with 'em?"

"Is that why you wanted me to start cooking?" Carol shakes some poultry seasoning into her bowl and gives him a wary look. "Even though the bird's not plucked yet? So I wouldn't be getting  _eye fucked_  by Mason?"

He nods to the bowl. "Gotta make the dry rub, don'tchya? 'N heat up the grill."

"True enough." She pinches in some salt. "Maggie's sleeping, but she's getting the blood she needs. It was very kind of Mason to donate."

Daryl grunts. "Ain't  _donatin'_. Gettin' paid in supplies."

"Still, he didn't  _have_  to do it," Carol tells him.

Daryl leans back against the counter opposite her and taps the flat end of the cleaver against his knee. "Think maybe Javier's gettin' paid in somethin' else."

"Well, that's Rosita's business." Carol shakes some pepper into the bowl. "Don't go putting that cleaver to any parts of his anatomy."

Daryl stops tapping the cleaver. He pushes off the counter. "Ya smell damn good," he says. "Kind of sweet."

"It's the basil. Not me."

He leans in and sniffs her neck. Then he sniffs the spices in the bowl. "Yeah. Guess so. Still. Like the way ya smell."

She smiles as he walks out the door.

[*]

The sun is setting gently in the hills. Elijah packs up his medical supplies. The smell of roasted turkey wafts through the inn. Mason is no longer in the bed beside Maggie. She has risen from her slumber and sits up drinking Gatorade from a straw, with H.G. curled up and asleep on the bed at her hip.

Enid sets a plate of food down on the nightstand for her, and then puts two more on the dresser. "One's for you," she tells Elijah. "I thought we'd eat up here and keep an eye on Maggie."

Elijah nods. "I'll go wash up."

Enid takes her plate and sits down in the chair. "Were you able to feed H.G.?"

"Not yet. But hopefully later, when I've had lots of liquids. Thank God for Nabila." Maggie strokes the soft hair of H.G.'s head. "And for that man who gave me his blood. Whoever he was."

"Mason Weatherford."

"He sure ran off fast," Maggie says.

Enid smiles. "I think he smelled the turkey."

"And Elijah," Maggie continues, "he had no obligation to save me and bring me here."

"He saved me, too," Enid tells her. "He – " Enid's about to say more when Elijah walks back in, and she falls silent instead.

He takes the chair from the roll-top desk in the corner and pulls it up next to Enid before grabbing his plate and sitting down. "I'll leave tomorrow," he says. "When I'm sure Maggie is better."

"Don't," Enid pleads. "Come on. You've  _seen_  what we've got. What we're building. How can you  _think_  of leaving now?"

"I told you. If I keep moving, I'll survive."

"People aren't sharks!" Enid insists.

"And if you're alone," Maggie asks him, "what exactly are you surviving  _for_?"

Elijah looks down at his plate, stabs some turkey, and consumes it in thoughtful silence as laughter drifts up from the dining room downstairs.


	30. Chapter 30

Rosita lights the way with a kerosene lamp as Carol carries a large tray to the dining room. She's already made plates for the three people upstairs and for Morgan and Tara, who are on watch, but everyone else is seated at the dining room table awaiting the turkey.

"What did Javier end up taking?" Carol asks.

"A case of .223 and two jars of powder. He also wanted twelve boxes of bullets, but I talked him down to two."

"That's still a lot."

"Amos has been riding him hard about going easy on us after all those men attacked them. Apparently, Amos actually asked for twice the bounty Javier took. And he didn't approve the loan of the pump or the power pack. Javier feels like if he comes back with too little this time, Amos will have his nuts in a vice."

Carol shakes her head. "I hate to wish a heart attack on an old man, but…" She falls silent just before they enter the dining room.

[*]

A dozen tapered candles flicker in the silver candelabra. Mason's flannel shirt sleeve is rolled up, and a band of blue medical tape circles his arm. He closes his eyes and mmmmmms his way through a bite of turkey. "My compliments to the chef."

"Well," Carol says, smiling at Daryl, who is eyeing Mason warily, "thank the hunter, too."

"I haven't seen any wild turkeys on our land," Javier says. "Have you?"

"No," Mason replies. "But a few big birds would be nice for Thanksgiving next month. We might could trade y'all fresh vegetables, fruit, and milk for turkey, if Daryl catches more."

"And maybe we could trade you turkey for the midwifing services of your sister Dolly," Rick suggests. "Michonne's due in late May or early June."

Michonne rolls her eyes. "Why don't you just take out a billboard, sweetheart?"

"Do you think she'd agree to come?" Rick asks Mason. "Your sister?"

"May I be direct with you, Rick?"

Rick nods.

"You left a series of road signs that brought thieves and murders to our doorstep. We ran the well half dry fighting the fire they set. The horses lost two-thirds of their hay. We expended a great deal of ammunition fighting back. The children were terrorized. And we had two injuries, one that will have our best field hand laid up for the entire fall harvest."

"I didn't know about the injuries," Rick says.

"Add to that the fact that our past kindness toward strangers led to slaughter. The memory still lingers. Let's give the peace between us a month to settle. Then I'll discuss the matter with Dolly. But I make no promises."

"That's all I ask," Rick says.

Mason points to the cranberry sauce with his fork. "Love what you've done to it, Carol."

"What I've  _done to it_  is slide it out of the can," Carol admits.

"I know," Mason replies. "It's still got the rings on it. I love it like that. That's how my wife made it. God rest her soul." He glances at Dianne. "She did not make it beyond the first week of the Epidemic. I am, alas, a widower."

Dianne eyes him curiously, but not exactly welcomingly. "You look like someone."

"Robert Redford," Carol says.

Dianne nods. "That's it."

"Who knows," Mason says. "Maybe I  _am_  Robert Redford, living under a nom de plume. Starting over in these End Times. No longer relying on my celebrity."

"I doubt it," Dianne replies. "Robert Redford would be eighty something if he were still alive. You look about fifty."

"Why thank you, ma'am. I'm actually fifty-six."

"You ever wonder about that?" Rosita asks Javier. "If there are any celebrities still alive?"

Javier shakes his head. "Those people are all too precious to survive something like this."

"Oh, I don't know," Jerry says, his arms on either side of his plate and a grin on his face. "I bet Iron Man could survive."

Henry grins back from across the table. "Or Batman!"

"Those were the  _characters_  they played," Rosita reminds them.

"Bet Chuck Norris is still alive," Daryl says.

Jerry grins. "Yeah. Him and Clint Eastwood."

When speculation over celebrity survivals dies down, Aaron asks, "How big is your camp? How many people?"

"Seven families," Javier answers. "Mine's the smallest now. Since the uprising. It just has me and my niece. Mason's family is the largest."

"I've still got my pa," Mason tells them. "Got a sister and a half-sister. A brother. A half-brother. My own boy, Carson. Two nieces…" he counts on his fingers… "two nephews, one grandniece, and two grandnephews. And a brother-in-law and a sister-in-law."

"And you  _could_  have a daughter-in-law," Javier says, "if you would just light a fire under your son's ass. Make him step up and marry my niece."

"Well now, Javier," Mason replies in a conciliatory tone, "marriage is not a thing to be entered into lightly. Especially not at the tender ages of twenty and eighteen."

"Neither is fatherhood," Javier replies. "But he didn't have any problem knocking her up, did he?"

"Let's be honest," Mason drawls. "We both know Carson's not the  _only_  possible father. You just dislike him less than you dislike Santiago."

Daryl grunts. "Who the hell invited the Maury Povich show?"

Javier points his fork at Mason. " _Carson's_  the papi. And he's trying to keep his options open. I don't like it. You should light a fire under his little punk ass."

Mason tosses his napkin on the table. "You know what would go well with this argument? Wine." He stands. "And we've got four bottles of Dead End's second-best vintage in our truck."

"You're not supposed to drink alcohol after you've given so much blood," Dianne warns him.

"How kind of you to take concern for my health, ma'am," Mason says as he takes a candle to light his way.

[*]

Nabila's wine glass is empty, as is Michonne's and Mason's. Henry's been given a glass of Cherry Coke. But everyone else now raises their wine to their lips and takes a small sip.

"I taste a little vanilla," Aaron says.

"It's the blackberry that teases my tongue," Ezekiel adds.

Jesus swivels his glass and sniffs. "Cherry on the nose."

"I'm getting hints of tobacco," Carol adds. She figures that's a safe guess. It's Virginia.  _All_  the wine probably has hints of tobacco.

"Tastes like wine to me," Daryl mutters. But he takes a big, appreciative gulp.

"Make sure we save a glass each for Morgan and Tara," Jesus says. "When they get off watch."

"Should someone bring a bottle upstairs?" Javier asks.

Michonne shakes her head. "Maggie shouldn't be drinking, and the other two are under twenty-one."

"Well, I don't think there's a federal drinking age anymore," Mason says. "But I don't suppose two young people need any further encouragement to vice than one another."

"That's for damn sure." Javier gives Mason a pointed look, but Mason only smiles in reply.

"This wine is really good," Rosita says.

"It  _is_  good, isn't it?" Javier tilts his glass toward Mason. "We should serve it at the  _wedding_. You know, if your son ever mans up."

" _Your_  niece two-timed  _him_ ," Mason replies. "That might could account for his lack of enthusiasm on the matter of marriage."

Javier shrugs.

"You can't expect him to want to raise another man's child."

Rick lowers his glass to the table. "There's nothing wrong with raising someone else's child."

Gracie, who is sitting on Nabila's lap, lies back sleepily against her chest. Henry looks at Carol across the table. Michonne smiles at Judith, who is leaning over in her booster seat and trying to feed Daryl a green bean. Daryl scarfs it up and pretends to eat her fingertips, until the little girl laughs, and her laughter fills the rafters above the dust-coated chandelier.

[*]

Carol eases out on the porch after leaving Aaron and Jesus doing the dishes and finds Daryl smoking one of the three cigarettes he traded Mason for a bottle of beer. The porch is lit by a single kerosene lantern on the end table between two rocking chairs. "Is Mason gone?" she asks.

"Why?" Daryl grumbles. "Sorry ya didn't get to kiss 'em goodbye?"

" _Daryl_."

"Sure were laughing at his jokes," he grumbles.

" _Everyone_  was laughing at his jokes. You need to get along with Mason. He's going to be the head of Dead End one day."

"Can't even be the head of his own damn family!" Daryl grumbles. "Let's his son run wild, impregnatin' teenage girls."

"Well, I believe it's just the  _one_  teenage girl. And she's only two years younger than him. And Carson may or may not have been the one to impregnate her."

"Who the hell names their son Carson?" Daryl grumbles. "Pretentious as hell."

"I'll tell you who names their son Carson." She leans back against the porch rail. "My father, that's who. It was my brother's name."

"Ya had a  _brother_?"

She nods. "He died when I was five. He was seven. Drowning accident. My father was always extremely protective of me after that."

Daryl takes a drag until the tip of his cigarette turns red and then blows smoke out over the porch railing.

"I think I just got used to it," she says. "Being constantly monitored. Not being  _trusted_  by the man in my life to know what was safe or good for me. Not being trusted to stay out of trouble. But I shouldn't have. I  _shouldn't_  have let myself get used to it."

As subtle as she's trying to be, Daryl clearly hears the warning. "Ain't tryin' to monitor ya, Carol. And I  _do_  trust ya." He takes another puff of his cigarette and then studies the end of it for a moment before speaking. "Trust ya not to lie to me. If'n ya ever decide ya don't want to be m'girl no more, sure y'll tell me honestly 'fore ya move on."

"Oh, Daryl…" Carol's smile is tinged with affection, sadness, and love. "I'm  _never_  not going to want to be your girl."

His eyes dart away, and he seems a little unsteady on his feet. He roots them to the porch boards. Then he clears his throat. "Listen," he says, finally looking directly at her, "I know ya been through shit. But ya gotta know this – I ain't yer daddy, and I ain't Ed."

"I know."

"But I ain't Prince Charmin' neither."

She smiles. "Well _, that_ I don't know." Carol hooks a finger through one of his belt loops. "You're  _my_  Prince Charming."

She draws him close and kisses him, and when she pulls away, she slides the cigarette slowly out from between his fingers. She puts it to her lips and sucks in, long, slow, and hard. After the sharp nicotine buzz hits her, she turns her head and blows the smoke away from his face, out over the railing. When she looks back again, he's watching her and licking his lips.

"What?" she asks.

"Damn sexy," he rasps.

"Who?"

" _You_."

[*]

When they go back inside, room arrangements are being parceled out by Rick. Henry is to be roomed with Jerry in the second-floor billiard room. Dianne is assigned to Tara's room on the second floor, since it has two beds, and Rick gives Elijah the third-floor living room, "for as long as you want to stay with us."

"Just for a night or two," Elijah says.

"Well, the third-floor living room is taken," Carol whispers to Daryl. "I guess that means you're rooming with me from now on."

[*]

Daryl follows Carol into her bedroom.  _Their_  bedroom. She's already moved his backpack and crossbow in. Both sit by the dresser.

"You get the bottom three drawers," she says. "There's already some boxer briefs in there that might fit you. And some shirts. The legs of the pants are too long though. He must have been really tall."

Daryl unzips his backpack and pulls open the third drawer from the bottom. He plans to just shove in what he can, but his eyes fall on all the silky lingerie – a red, skimpy nightie, garters and stockings, lacy black bras, red panties that look like they don't even have a crotch. "Really tall cross dresser, maybe."

Carol flushes, strides over, and slams the drawer shut. "I meant the bottom  _two_  drawers. That one's mine."

His eyes follow her as she walks back to the bed and sits down to take off her boots. He swallows. "Yers?"

"Well, I mean, the woman who was here before me."

"They fit ya?" he asks.

Carol peers up from the sock she's peeling off like it never would have occurred to her that he might want to see her in such things. "I haven't exactly tried them on."

"Oh." Daryl starts unloading his clothes into the second to bottom drawer, after pushing all the socks and underwear to one side.

"Do you  _want_  me to?"

Daryl shrugs and doesn't dare look at her. "Up to you."

She laughs, a little nervously, a little dismissively. "I'm not really the sexy type."

"Yeah," he says softly. "Ya  _are_. To me."

She's very quiet as he finishes unloading the backpack. But then she says, "Maybe I will. Not the  _garters_. I'm not even sure how to connect those. But maybe the silk nightie. The red one."

Daryl's fingers slip on the backpack he's trying to close up. He can feel his dick twitching beneath the zipper of his pants. "Mhmmh," he murmurs. "Good choice."

[*]

Carol's never known what it means to feel  _truly_  sexy. But she feels it tonight.

It's not just the lace that teases her nipples as Daryl cups and squeezed her breasts gently through the negligee, or the red silk that sinks between her legs as he slides atop her. It's not just the feel of his erection pulsing against the inside of her thigh.

It's the soft love nest of blankets on the floor at the foot of their bed. It's the dancing flames of the fireplace. It's the words he's murmuring in her ear, and it's the scratchy growl of his voice as he murmurs them: "M'sexy girl…so goddamn beautiful….I want ya, Carol…want ya so bad…"

She closes her eyes and gives into the moment, surrenders to her new-conquering self-esteem, and loses herself in Daryl's liturgy as he worships at the altar of her body.


	31. Chapter 31

The flames have petered out in the fireplace, and sun is shining through the curtain lace. The blankets are heavy a top Carol's naked body. The sexy red negligee lies in a discarded ball-like clump on the floor. A chorus of birds chirps outside the window.

She rolls lazily to her side and settles her head on Daryl's chest. He stirs and sleepily begins to trace a shape on her back with a single finger.

She giggles against his bare flesh. "Are you drawing a  _heart_?"

"Hand grenade," he says.

"Your art skills are atrocious."

He wraps his other arm around her. "Should get up," he says. "Fence to build. Fields to plow."

"I know we should." But Carol only wraps her leg between two of his and closes her eyes. Twenty minutes later, she wakes up to the sound of him clipping his holster to his belt, and then she fades back to sleep.

[*]

Holding a breakfast tray in one hand like a waiter, Daryl knocks on Maggie's door. He's been putting off visiting her, because he couldn't stand the thought of her dying. She's one of only three people who have been with him since the farm. But she's pulled through, and everyone says she's looking a lot better.

"Come in!"

The crib has been moved into her room, and H.G. is asleep in it, back down, swaddled in a blue blanket. Maggie drags herself into a sitting position.

"Wake ya?"

"No. The birds did."

Daryl walks to her bedside. "Don't worry. Didn't make it. Enid did. Just deleverin'." He hands her the breakfast tray of oatmeal, coffee, and –

"A beer?" Maggie asks.

"My nana said it helps a woman make milk."

Maggie chuckles. "Well, thank you. I did finally manage to feed H.G. around five in the morning, though. And it must have been enough, because he's been asleep for three hours."

Daryl nods and is about to leave when H.G. stirs in his crib. His big, warm brown eyes open and look up at Daryl, and then his tiny, olive-toned face scrunches up, and he starts to cry.

"Would you get him until I finish this?" Maggie starts shoveling the oatmeal into her mouth.

Daryl scoops the tiny creature out of the crib. At five weeks, H.G.'s still almost as small as Judith was the day she was born. He cradles the infant in the crook of one arm and sits on the chair next to Maggie's bed. To stop the baby from crying, he lets it suck on his pinky. H.G. sucks hard, and Daryl thanks God he doesn't have tits and doesn't have to feed a baby from them. "Think he wants you."

"Well, it's nice to know I can do  _something_." Maggie nods down to the smooth dip in the blanket that covers the spot where her foot used to be. "I am truly following in my father's footsteps." She picks up her coffee and takes a sip.

"Yer daddy had footsteps worth followin'. And, hell, Mason says he'll bring that artificial foot if'n he can find it. Ain't gonna be runnin' any marathons, but ya can help."

Maggie sighs and sets her tray on the nightstand. Daryl hands her the baby and looks quickly away when she abruptly lifts her shirt to plop him on her breast. "It's okay," she says. "All covered now."

Cautiously, he turns back his head, and she's draped a feeding blanket over herself. H.G. is visible only by the ripples in the blanket.

"I stepped in a pile of hay," Maggie says, "and it was buried under there. The walker. It took a bite out of my ankle. I was foolish. I didn't look. I was looking for some gas for this near-empty farm pick-up truck I finally got started. I was tired and hungry and hoping I could drive the rest of the way to Dead End."

"Saw one of Rick's signs?"

Maggie nods. "For  _days_  I made my way on foot. I survived alone all that time, and then I got bit because I didn't  _look_."

"We've all done dumb ass things."

"I thought of giving up. Just letting myself die and turn. I didn't know if H.G. was one of the ten alive. But then I thought of Glenn, and of how he would have wanted me to hope. Press on. And be there for our child. So I got an axe from the barn, and I got something to bite down on…"

Daryl winces. "Yer like Merle."

"What?" she asks.

"Tough. Like Merle. Doin' yer own amputation. Tough as nails. Could chew up nails and spit 'em out for breakfast."

Maggie smiles. "I think I'll stick with the oatmeal."

Daryl slides his hand into the front pocket of his shirt and hands Maggie Herhsel's charred watch. "Carol brought this back for ya. From Glenn's grave. Thought ya might want it."

Maggie reaches for the watch with the hand that is not cradling H.G. and runs a finger over the ridges of the blackened-silver band. "Thank her for me." She sets it on the nightstand.

"Put up a new cross for Glenn. And the others we lost. One's we could recognize. Father Gabriel. Eugene. Dwight. Sherry. Alden. Sidiqq. Kal. Tobin. Kevin. Bertie."

"Barbara?" Maggie asks.

Barbara had been with them in Alexandria and had often watched Judith. She'd escaped with the group through the sewers to the Hilltop. Daryl had been relieved when she'd taken up with Tobin, because that had to mean it was truly over with Carol. "Dunno," Daryl admits.

"Scott?"

Scott was a good supply runner for the Alexandria Safe Zone and a reliable member of the Hilltop militia. "Dunno," he repeats.

"Eduardo?"

Daryl didn't know Eduardo well, except that he had that ridiculous manbun, and Rosita once said he was hot. "Dunno," he says again.

"Anne?"

That's the real name Jadis started calling herself when she stopped playing make believe and joined the Hilltop.

"Dunno."

"Terr – "

"- I dunno, Maggie. Just dunno. They were…." He sighs. "There weren't nothin' left."

[*]

In return for a payment of ammunition, Elijah agrees to stay and help until the fence is fully constructed, but that's  _all_  he'll promise.

"I hope you change your mind and stay permanently," Rick tells him. "You're an asset to this camp, and the closest thing to a doctor we've got."

They all start calling him "Dr. Elijah," much to his embarrassment. The young man alternates between tending Maggie, checking on Henry's leg, and helping with the fence on and off throughout the day.

With Carol, Jesus, and Daryl returned from their trips, and Jerry, Diane, and Elijah added to the laborers, the group manages to erect a third of the entire fence by dinner time.

Carol whips together something from the goods she and Daryl scavenged at the general store. Maggie hops down the stairs on one foot and then uses a pair of crutches Elijah brings in from the blood bus to join them at the dining room table. It's her first time out of the bedroom since the transfusion.

Michonne now passes the pitcher of water to Rosita, who asks, "Did Dead End check in today? Over the radio?"

"No," Michonne answers.

Rosita pours and passes the pitcher onto Morgan. "I'm only thinking of Maggie," she insists. "Of that prosthetic foot, you know."

"Mhmhm," Michonne murmurs.

"Maybe we should check if they've found it? I could…" Rosita shrugs. "Try to radio Javier. Just to see."

Michonne suppresses a smile. "Why don't you do that.  _Just to see_."

Rick asks, "Is it time to re-form the Council? I mean, we have twenty people now, including the kids."

"Most of the Council's here," Maggie replies. "Me, Rick, Carol, and Ezekiel. Everyone except Siddiq. So we could just elect a fifth. Or we can chop it down to three. As long as we have an odd number for tie breaking."

They opt to elect a fifth council member and hand out secret ballots. They even hand Elijah a slip of paper, but he declines to participate. "It wouldn't be fair. I don't really know anyone well enough, and I won't be here for that long." He volunteers to run ballots between the dining room and the watch instead.

Daryl ekes out Rosita by one vote for the empty slot on the council. The new council remains at the table after dinner to make its plans while the rest of the camp disperses to a mixture of work and watch and leisure.

[*]

Rosita has come into the first-floor living room to use the radio privately. No one's claimed this room to sleep in, and an inch of dust still coats the top of the black piano. Cobwebs fill the corners. Dead wood rots in the unused fireplace. She sits down on the edge of the glass-top coffee table, where she's set a kerosene lamp to light the room. "Rosita Espinoza at Hillcrest," she repeats into the radio for the third time.

Finally, there's a response – the sound of live music – someone playing Spanish guitar –people talking, and a woman laughing. Then - "Hello? Who again?"

"Rosita Espinoza, from Hillcrest," she says more loudly. "Who's this?"

"Garret Weatherford." He shouts away from the radio. "Quiet down! Tryin' to communicate here!"

The guitar doesn't stop, but the woman stops laughing and the people stop talking.

"What do you want?" Garret asks.

"Could I uh…talk to Javier?" Rosita asks.

"Javier!"

The guitar stops.

"Someone over at Hillcrest wants you. Rosy something."

There's dead silence for almost a full minute, and then Javier's voice comes on. "Que paso, hermosa?" There's no sound of music or laughter anymore, and instead the fall crickets are singing. He must have gone outside for privacy.

"Was that  _you_  playing the guitar?" she asks.

"Sure. What else is there to do after sunset?"

"But that was actually  _good_."

Javier laughs. "I've played classical guitar since I was seven. My father taught me. I played at your brother's reception. You don't remember?"

"I think I was watching the singer."

"Ah. Alejandro. Of course." He's quiet for a moment and then says, "I assume you aren't calling to chat, so how can I help?"

"Did Mason find that prosthetic foot?"

"Sí. Sí . He's bringing it tomorrow morning. He just wants two beers in exchange. And uh…I'll come with him. If you'd like."

"If you want," she says nonchalantly.

"I could bring three jars of last fall's applesauce. We're harvesting soon. We can replace them. Amos won't notice if I ask Maria to fudge the inventory. She'll do it for just a kiss."

Until this moment, Rosita did not consider that Javier might have a girlfriend at Dead End. She's been making him use condoms, but mostly to prevent pregnancy. "What?" She doesn't mean her tone to sound possessive, but it does.

Javier chuckles. "She's 85. She's an abuela of one of the families here. Still sharp as a tack. She's completely in love with me."

"Well then she can't be sharp as a tack." Rosita's wryness disguises her relief.

"So do you want me to come or not?"

"You can come. Was Amos satisfied with what you took yesterday? Or is he still angry?"

"He's still angry. Which is to say he's afraid. He's afraid if Mason and I make friends with you Hillcresters, one day, we'll let you visit inside the gates, and then you'll turn on us."

"And what about you?" she asks. "Are you afraid?"

"Of  _you_ , hermosa?" He pauses. "Maybe sometimes. A little bit."

She laughs.

[*]

Carol has been pressed into notetaking, and she scribbles across a legal pad as the meeting continues. It's been agreed that because the house is filled to capacity, and the rains are unpredictable, they need to ration the water to prevent the well from running dry. They settle on two full baths per week per person, with spot bathing from water in the sink basins in between. "And double up in the baths if you can," Rick says.

Daryl's eyes flit to Carol and then to his hands on the dining room table. He picks at a groove in the wood. "Need a smokehouse," he says.

"The fence is our priority," Rick insists. "No sense building something we can't protect."

"Food is an equal priority," Ezekiel says, "Nabila says we must plant within the next five or six weeks if we hope to have a harvest in the spring. That means we must clear, plow, dig irrigation,  _and_ plant before December falls upon us."

"So we won't have any fresh food for the winter?" Maggie asks.

"Sadly, it's too late to plant for a fall harvest," Ezekiel replies.

"There's a small greenhouse," Carol says. "Already intact, about a fourth a mile down the path at the back of the inn. We should be able to grow a little something there for the winter."

"Smokehouse means meat for the winter," Daryl reasons. "And if we can catch 'n smoke wild turkey…sounds like we can trade it to Dead End for produce."

"Why don't we put a team of four on the smokehouse," Carol suggests. "A team of four on the fields and greenhouse, and a team of five on the fence? That will still allow for childcare. And a rotating watch."

"We need more on the fence," Rick insists. "Those men from Norfolk are still out there somewhere. We hope they aren't looking for us, and that they don't find us, but even if they  _don't_ …" He sighs. "There are always men like them. Do we really want to leave our walls down any longer than we have to?"

"Rick's right," Maggie agrees. "After all we've been through, I don't see how we can't make defense our foremost priority."

"Fine," Daryl mutters. "Build the damn smokehouse myself."

"You can have Dianne on the smokehouse team," Rick tells Daryl. "She helped build the smokehouse at the Kingdom."

"And I want Nabila for the fields," Ezekiel says. "And Carol, if she's willing."

"I think I might be a bit of a third wheel in that arrangement," Carol teases Ezekiel.

"Not at all. I do not move with overmuch boldness in such matters."

"Well, remember your Shakespeare," Carol retorts. "Better three hours too soon than a moment too late."

Ezekiel half bows his head to her. "I shall consider your advice, my sage friend."

"Hell y'all talkin' bout?" Daryl asks.

"I'll tell you later," Carol says. "And I think I should plant the greenhouse, Ezekiel, while you and Nabila work together to clear and plow the fields."

"I'll be on the fence team," Rick says, "with Morgan, Jesus, Elijah, Jerry, Rosita, and Enid. Maggie, you can be on childcare until you get a little firmer footing, and Henry can help with the girls. Michonne can take watch most of the day, though we'll do some rotating out."

"I assume the watch is mostly to sound the alarm?" Maggie asks. "You'll  _all_  be working with handguns on your hips and rifles near at hand, won't you?"

"We will indeed," Ezekiel agrees.

Maggie leans forward in her chair. "We need to have a rendezvous point. In case this camp is ever destroyed. We lost the prison. We lost the Hilltop. And both times, we had no place to meet up. We need to agree on a place to meet up, in case it ever happens again."

They agree on the drafthouse at Ashburn, since Carol and Daryl already cleared out the walkers there and the town wasn't too overrun, and then they adjourn.

[*]

Judith rubs her eyes sleepily and then hops the stuffed Wild Thing Daryl gave her over the pages of the book and raises it toward his face. "Kiss Wile Thang," she demands.

Daryl leans forward and kisses the ugly creature's nose.

"Now Kiss Ass Kicker!"

Daryl leans down and kisses the top of her head. Judith snuggles in against his side. "Wead."

This is their third time through this book.  _Tonight alone_. But Daryl continues, "The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth." He looks down, but Judith is not gnashing her teeth as she did the last two times he got to this part. She's sucking her thumb, with the stuffed Wild Thing squished in the crook of her arm.

"…And rolled their terrible eyes…" Judith's eyelids droop. "…And showed their terrible claws." Daryl lowers his voice to a whisper. "But Max stepped in his private boat." Judith lets out a single, tiny snore. Daryl very carefully closes the book, but he's got it memorized now, so he keeps on: "And waved goodbye." He lays the book quietly on the nightstand. "And sailed back over a year," he whispers as he eases out from her and tucks her in.

Daryl tiptoes to the door and then walks across the hallway, muttering to himself, "And in and out of weeks." In the foyer, he gives a thumbs up to Rick, who is in the library, to let him know Judith is asleep, and then he climbs the stairs, whispering to himself, "And through a day." He walks to the Chardonnay room. "And into the night of his very own room."

Carol looks up from her book and smiles.

"Where he found his girl waitin' for 'em."

She closes the book and puts it on the nightstand.

"And she was still hot."

"What?"

"Nothin'." He unbuttons the top two buttons of his long-sleeve canvass shirt and yanks it off over his head before tossing it over the chair of the vanity.

"Is Judith asleep?"

"Mhmhm." He sits on the bed and peels off his socks. His boots are still in Rick's bedroom. He'll get them tomorrow.

"You look tired, Pookie."

"Am." He rolls to his side and rests his head on her chest with one arm draped lazily over her waist.

Carol strokes his hair and kisses the top of his head. "Want me to read you to sleep?" she jokes.

"Nah. Sing."

"Really?"

"Mhmm. Like yer voice. Not that damn lollipop song though." He closes his eyes and savors the feel of her fingers raking through his hair as she considers his request.

"My mom used to sing me an Irish lullaby," she says.

"Yer Irish?" Daryl opens one eye. He realizes, suddenly, that he doesn't know her maiden name. "'S yer name?"

"My name?"

"Yer last name. 'Fore ya got married."

"Schumacher."

"Don't sound very Irish."

"My father's grandparents immigrated from Germany. My mom's parents were from Ireland. She was a McBride."

" _McBride?_  Is that a girl a guy can marry for 99 cents?"

Carol chuckles and tucks a strand of his hair back behind his ear. "Do you want a lullaby or not?"

"Mmhm. Rather have an Irish lullaby than a German one."

She smiles. And then she begins to sing, softly, as she toys gently with his hair.

Daryl only hears the first few bars.


	32. Chapter 32

Daryl is snapping things to his belt when Carol wakes up. A holster. A knife. A leatherman tool. Another knife. She yawns and stretches.

"Hell were ya talkin' 'bout to Zeke last night?" he asks. "Third wheels and sage advice?"

"He likes Nabila." She pulls herself into a sitting position. "And I think he should make his move already."

"So yer best buds now? Givin' 'em datin' advice?"

" _Please_  tell me you're not jealous of Ezekiel."

"Nah."

"Then why are you jealous of  _Mason_?"

"Ain't jealous." Daryl takes his handgun off the dresser and slides it into his holster. "But if'n I was  _concerned_ , would only be 'cause I don't really know 'em.  _Know_  Zeke. If Zeke was gonna make a move on ya, would of by now."

"How do you know he hasn't?"

Daryl snaps the strap of his holster over his handgun very slowly. "Has he?"

Carol smiles. "There was a time when I thought he might be doing just that, in his subtle, kingly way. But that was back in the Kingdom. That was a world ago. And I really think he likes Nabila now. I think she'd suit him much better than I would."

"Any man'd be lucky to have ya." Daryl looks around. "Hell are my boots?"

[*]

Work doesn't get started right away because Mason and Javier show up early in the morning with the prosthetic foot and four jars of applesauce. Rick brings them into the foyer as several others gather around.

"Sorry for the early intrusion," Mason says. "But we start the first of two fall harvests today. We'll be wanted back shortly."

Javier watches as Rosita comes down the stairs that spills into the foyer. She stops on the second to last step and jerks her head toward her second-floor bedroom. Javier smiles, eases behind Mason, and follows her up the stairs.

Meanwhile, Maggie hobbles into the foyer on crutches and Mason holds up the metal prosthetic. "Anyone know how to attach this thing?"

"I might," Elijah says.

They go to the first-floor living room, where Elijah, after consulting a medical book he had in his bus, manages to get the thing snapped properly in place.

Maggie stands shakily. She takes a few steps and then grips the piano for balance.

"You might still need a cane," Elijah says. "Until you get used to it. But you will."

[*]

Rosita raises her hips off the bed so Javier can yank down her jeans. When she collapses flat again, he does a plank over her and then lowers himself down to claim her mouth. Their tongues thrash together. Rosita jerks up against the erection that's straining to escape the open fly of his jeans. She's about to repeat the move when there's a loud knock at the door.

"What?" Rosita shouts with annoyance.

Mason's voice pierces through: "Tell Romeo he's only got twenty minutes. We've got a harvest to get to."

" _Only_  twenty?" Javier calls back. "I could beat your endurance record ten times by then, old man!"

"You can't hear this," replies Mason, "but that silence is the sound of me flickin' you off."

Rosita shoves Javier hard against the shoulder, and he rolls off her and onto his back, where he lets out a frustrated sigh.

Mason's bootsteps tap down the hallway.

"Come on," Javier says, "don't let Mason turn you off."

Rosita straddles him, tosses back her hair, and pushes the wet silk of her panties against his erection. "Who says I did?" she asks. "I just like to be on top sometimes."

[*}

Daryl and Diane are studying the plans for a smokehouse from  _A Key to Our Future_. They have the blueprint folded out of the book atop a picnic table.

"Where are we going to get the wood for this?" Dianne asks. "Isn't Rick using that pile of building supplies he found here for the fence?"

"Gonna strip the wood from the tastin' room down the hill. We ain't usin it. Place reeks. Too far down. Can see it from the highway. Rick's buildin' the fence above it. Might as well take it apart."

Mason approaches, lays six hand-rolled cigarettes next to the book, and asks, "You've got one of those books, too?"

"What do you mean?" Dianne replies.

"Some lady in a white pants suit pulled all the way up to our gates a year ago. Before we had up that stop sign. She traded one of those books to me. For a kiss."

Dianne's brow furrows. "A kiss? I don't believe that."

"Hell, she traded it to  _us_  for records," Daryl says.

"Think she was an angel?" Mason asks.

"No," Daryl grunts. "Ain't no such thing."

"A woman," Mason muses, "dressed all in white. With a  _good book_. Traveling far and wide to share hope for a future. And you don't think she was an angel?"

"I don't believe in angels," Dianne says.

Mason smiles at her. "Well I do."

"Them smokes for me?" Daryl asks.

Mason nods. "In exchange for three bottles of beer."

"One bottle," Daryl replies.

"Three. Because two bottles are for that foot I gave Maggie."

"Fine, two bottles."

" _Three_. But I'll add two more cigarettes." Mason fishes two more out of his pocket and tosses them on the table.

"Fine. Three," Daryl agrees. "But  _cans_. Not bottles. 'S go get 'em." Daryl takes a few steps but stops because Mason isn't following him.

He turns to see Mason taking something out of the pocket of his dark blue denim jacket - a single-shot bottle of amaretto, the kind you might get on an airplane. He sets it on the picnic table before Dianne. "For the lovely lady," he says. "Free of charge."

"I don't drink," Dianne answers as she folds up the blueprints.

"You drank wine at dinner the night before last," Mason reminds her.

"Because you brought that wine in for  _everyone_. And we gave you a meal."

Mason tilts his head in confusion.

"I didn't let men buy me drinks in the old world," Dianne explains. "and I don't let them do it in this one. It gives them  _ideas_."

Mason takes hold of the amaretto bottle and slides it back across the table. He slips it quietly into his jacket pocket. "My mistake, ma'am."

[*]

Nabila presses fresh soil into a planter in the greenhouse while Carol returns with an empty pot. She's been cleaning out the dead growth.

"We should plant perpetual spinach," Nabila tells her, "because it will grow through winter. Broad beans and spring onions. They can be harvested a month earlier than most of the spring vegetables. I think we have those seeds among what we looted on the way from the Hilltop."

"I can handle all this," Carol says. "I think Ezekiel needs help in the fields."

"I really prefer gardening to farming."

"But it's a big task, clearing all that land," Carol tells her.

"I talk too much, don't I?" Nabila says and stands. She dusts the dirt off by slapping her hands together. "It's okay, Carol. I can take a hint."

"You  _don't_  talk too much," Carol insists. "It's just…I think Ezekiel  _enjoys_  your company."

Nabila smiles. "He enjoys everyone's company. I doubt mine is of any greater value to him. But I'll go help in the fields."

[*]

Even with fewer hands on the fence today, they manage to finish almost another third. The three most useful fields have been entirely cleared of brush, and the little greenhouse has been over half planted. Wood has been stripped from the tasting room, and the base of the smokehouse has been marked out with cinderblock.

After a hard day's work, everyone settles down to a dinner of tuna and grits, which is Carol's impromptu variation on spicy shrimp and grits.

Henry waves his hand over his tongue and says, "Too hot."

"Little ass kicker's eatin' the girts!" Daryl tells him. "Like a real man."

Henry frowns and digs his spoon back into the bowl and forces down a bite.

Carol leans over to Daryl. "Judith's grits are plain, Pookie. Just a little salt. Go easy on Henry. He looks up to you."

"Sorry," Daryl mutters to Henry. "Applesauce for dessert, if'n ya eat yer grits."

Everyone gets a full serving of applesauce, with more still left for the kids' breakfast tomorrow. It's been jarred from last fall's fresh apples and lightly flavored with cinnamon. Gracie hums through her serving, and Judith says, "Yum, yum, yummy, yum yum!"

"We got all this applesauce  _and_  the foot  _and_  Daryl's cigarettes for just three cans of beer?" Maggie asks.

"I'm sure Rosita thanked Javier," Tara says with a smirk.

"So everyone knows, now?" Rosita asks.

"You're not exactly subtle," Jesus tells her.

[*]

The flames flicker in the billiard room fireplace. A sleeping bag, pillow, and assorted blankets lie on the rug before it – Henry's bed, because Jerry has the couch. But Henry's not in his bed yet. He's sitting on the dark cherry bar and watching Daryl lean over the pool table. So is Carol, but she's probably not watching for the same reason Henry is. She smiles to herself as she tilts her neck slightly to admire Daryl's ass.

The pool cue slides back and forth between his fingers, and his blue eyes are fierce with concentration. "Seven," he mutters. "Corner pocket." The cue ball cracks hard against the seven, which goes sailing straight into the corner pocket. Daryl has no more balls left on the table, while Jerry has three.

"I thought you weren't any good at this game, Pookie," Carol says.

"That's just what he  _wanted_  me to believe," Jerry tells her. "But now I owe him a pack of cigarettes. And I don't even  _have_  a pack of cigarettes."

Carol slides off the bar and puts a hand on the small of Daryl's back. "I think it's bed time."

"Promised Henry a game."

"Okay," she says. "Don't bet the house." She kisses his cheek and disappears up the stairs to their room on the third floor, where she starts the fire and puts the kettle on. She fills the basin of the bathroom sink with cold running water, and then she mingles the boiling with it, which cools to a lovely warm. Then she washes up – sponge bath style – dries off, and dresses in her pretty but comfy green silk pajamas. She drains the dirty water all away, but then she refills the sink for Daryl, adding more hot water from the kettle.

She's just climbing into bed when he comes through the door. "I left some clean warm water for you in the basin."

"Thatta hint?"

She smiles, but he takes a flashlight, dutifully goes to the bathroom, and shuts the door behind him. He comes out wearing the clean white muscle shirt and the soft cotton, ass-hugging, solid black boxer briefs she not so subtly left on the toilet seat. Then he climbs into bed smelling like Irish Spring.

He settles in with one arm behind his head and looks thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

Carol rests her elbow on the mattress, props up her head, and looks down on him. "Wanna fool around?" She says it in a half joking tone, because he looks pretty distracted, and she's not at all sure he does.

But Daryl surprises her by shouting, "Hell yeah!" He grins and rolls on his side and drags her close.

[*]

The flames are on their last legs in the fireplace, but the room is warm enough for now, and Daryl's arms are even warmer in the aftermath of love. Carol traces the sinews of the arm that's draped around her as she spoons back against him.

"Good?" he asks.

"I give it a 9."

"Out of…?"

"10, silly."

"Hmm." He bends his head against the crook of her neck and breathes in her scent. "Smell good. Basil?"

She laughs. "No. It's some lotion I used on my face."

"Mhmmmm." She thinks he's drifted off to sleep when he asks, "Wonder why Mason stopped callin' ya Mrs. Dixon?"

Her finger stills on his arm, but then she begins tracing again. "I guess because I told him we weren't married."

"Oh."

Carol can't quite make out the tone in his voice. Disappointment, maybe? Did he  _like_  the idea of her being Mrs. Dixon? "I said…" she ventures, "We're  _very much_  together. You and I. But we aren't  _officially_  married."

"Mhmh." His  _Mhmh_  sounds content.

"Very much together," she repeats.

"Since the end of time," he murmurs, and then that's the last thing she hears from him.


	33. Chapter 33

The next day, one of the cleared fields is hand plowed by Nabila and Ezekiel using some old manual farm equipment found in the barn. Carol finishes planting the greenhouse and takes a turn on watch. Maggie has gotten better using the prosthetic foot and insists on helping with the sanding for the smokehouse, which she can do sitting down. Daryl and Diane put up three sides of the smokehouse, but then pause construction to answer Rick's plea to help on the fence, which is so near completion.

The team erects the last few sections, and the iron gate is latched into place across the dirt road. Morgan swings the gate back and forth with a satisfying creak. "Not a bad welding job, if I do say so myself." At dinner, he says he'll get started on welding some spikes for the road tomorrow. "I'll make it easy for us to retract when Dead End comes to trade, though."

Henry leans forward eagerly in his seat. "Can I paint the stop sign?"

Carol smiles. "I think that would be a good task for you, Henry."

"Has Javier checked in?" Rosita asks Michonne. "I mean, not that I care. Just…wondered."

"No calls on the radio today," Michonne answers. "I think they're busy with that fall harvest."

Enid has been toying with her food.

"Something wrong?" Maggie asks her.

She looks across the table at Elijah. "So…the fence is finished. Does that mean you're leaving in the morning?"

"Uh…" Elijah studies his plate as he cuts into his fried Spam. "About that…it looks like you  _really_  need to plant those fields before it gets too cold. So, if I could get the promise of some batteries when I leave, I could stay and help until that's done."

Enid smiles.

[*]

Daryl sends a ball slamming into the corner pocket, and Jesus says, "I could have used you back in my hustling days."

"You used to be a hustler?" Aaron asks. He's sitting on the bar and drinking a cup of water.

"Only on Thursday nights."

Carol, her feet curled up on the leather billiard room couch, turns the page of the book she's reading. Maggie sits next to her, her prosthetic foot up on the coffee table, feeding H.G.

Rick and Michonne have "retired early," or so they claim, but Judith is in the downstairs library coloring with Enid, Elijah, and Gracie, and Carol's pretty sure the couple is seizing the opportunity of some rare privacy in their own bedroom. They did, after all, clarify with Enid  _four_  times that Judith was not to be brought to bed for another hour.

At the wooden table to the left of the fireplace, Henry slides a checker onto Jerry's side of the board and says, "King me."

Jerry flips the boy's checker over.

Rosita stands looking out the only window in the billiard room. "I can't believe he hasn't kissed her yet."

"Who?" Maggie asks.

"Ezekiel and Nabila are hanging out under the gazebo," Rosita replies. "They've found some tiki torches and lit them, and they're just… _talking_."

"Well, that's what some people do," Aaron tells her. "In the beginning. You know, to get to know one another. Before they go vaulting into bed."

Rosita turns from the window and gives him the look-over. "You got something to say to me, Land's End?"

Aaron holds up a hand and shakes his head.

Another one of Daryl's pool balls rolls across the table, bounces off the table wall, and rolls toward a pocket. It loses momentum and stops just before the opening. "Damn," he mutters.

Jesus lines up his next shot.

"Ten bucks says Elijah kisses the girl before the king does," Jerry says.

"What?" Henry asks. "Kisses  _what_  girl?"

"Uh… _Enid_."

"What?" Henry asks. "Elijah likes  _Enid_?" The boy sounds tragically disappointed, and Carol chuckles.

Rosita slumps down into the leather armchair. "When I was in high school, my mother  _never_  would have let me date a college-age boy. She tried to wrap me in seven layers of chastity belts."

"What's a chastity belt?" Henry asks, but no one answers him.

"Is that why you have a penchant for older men?" Aaron asks.

"Excuse me?"

The cue ball cracks against the 3, but the ball doesn't make it to the pocket. Jesus stands straight. "Tread lightly, my friend."

"Well, it's just Abraham had a good twenty or more years on you," Aaron tells Rosita. "And Javier has, what, twelve?"

"How young do you think I  _am_?" Rosita asks.

"Twenty-six?" Aaron guesses.

She laughs. "I  _knew_  there was a reason I couldn't dislike you. Javier's only eight years older than me. Abraham was sixteen, but he had… _stamina_."

"What's stamina?" Henry asks.

"Energy," Daryl tells him.

"Well I have lots of stamina!" Henry exclaims, and Jerry belly-laughs.

Daryl rubs chalk on his pool cue and bends over the pool table to line up his next shot. He's right in front of Carol and she is sorely tempted to reach out and pat his ass, but she knows that would mortify him. So she just gives it a nice, lingering look before returning to her book.

[*]

Daryl flops onto his back gasping for breath. He takes in two gulps of air. The shivers keep ripping through his body. " _Damn_."

Carol rolls on her side and lays her head on his shoulder.

"Damn," he repeats. "Why weren't we havin' this much sex 'fore?"

"Don't get used to it," Carol warns. "I just got horny watching you play pool."

"Hell. I can play pool  _every_  night."

She laughs. "Well, it's not going to make me horny  _every_  night. Besides, I think we're almost out of condoms. We've only got one more."

"Didn't the general store have 'em?"

"No. They didn't have any. We just had the few you've been collecting from houses and pockets."

Daryl shifts his hand to her lower back and settles it there. "Rick might have some. Don't need 'em no more, long as 'Chonne's pregnant."

"I'm not sure whatever condoms Rick had were working too well."

"Oh. Yeah." He massages her back gently while he thinks. "Javier! Bet that poon hound has a bunch of 'em."

"Probably," Carol agrees. "Though I don't know that he's a  _poon hound_. I think the only poon he's hounding is Rosita's."

"He's gotta have condoms, though."

"I bet Dead End has an entire  _county's_  worth of condoms," Carol says. "You've just got to find out what to trade."

She rolls over with her back toward him. He knows what that means. Time to spoon. He assumes the position, and she sinks back into him.

The fit is perfect.

[*]

With almost everyone at work in the fields now, the last two are plowed, and the hard labor of digging irrigation begins. Daryl and Diane finish the smokehouse by lunch, and after lunch, Diane joins the work in the fields, while Daryl heads off to hunt. He wants a wild turkey to trade to Dead End. He wonders how many condoms he can get for a turkey. Probably a three-month's supply. But Rick might think that's not the best use of their trade collateral. He'll probably say they should get vegetables instead. And he'll probably be right.

Daryl doesn't find a turkey right away, and he gets distracted tracking a deer, but loses the trail. He doesn't want to come back empty handed, so he starts looking for birds. He manages to get two grouse. He's only able to salvage two and quarter pounds of meat between the two of them. That will only mean two or three ounces of meat per person for dinner tonight.

He needs to find that  _deer_.

[*]

"Did Javier check in today?" Rosita asks Michonne at dinner. "Not that – "

"- You care," Michonne finishes for her. "No. But Mason did. He asked how the foot was doing for Maggie. And he said he'd like to come by to do some trading for the rest of our beer tomorrow."

"The  _rest_  of it?" Daryl asks. " _All_  of it? Got more 'n twenty."

"He promises he'll make it worth our while," Michonne replies. "So is there's anything in particular anyone wants him to bring for trade?"

Daryl glances at Carol, who flushes slightly and says nothing. So he doesn't say anything either.

"The thing we need most is fresh fruits and vegetables," Rick insists. "So just ask for that."

"Is Javier coming to trade with him?" Rosita asks. "Not that –"

"-  _You care_ ," half the table finishes for her.

[*]

Carol, wearing only one of the terrycloth bathrobes supplied by the inn, is stirring boiling water into the ice cold bath when she hears their bedroom door click. "Are you off watch now?" she calls from the bathroom, which is lit by three candles that rest on the back of the toilet tank. She knows he is, of course. She planned to have the bath drawn for just this moment.

She hears is familiar grunt and the clang of his boots hitting the bedroom wall. She comes to the open doorway between the bedroom and master bath and leans with one arm stretched up over her head against the doorsill. Daryl looks away from the crackling fire and at her.

"Ready to conserve water?" she asks.

He chews on his thumbnail as she lowers her arm, slowly pulls the tie of her bathrobe loose, and lets it fall in a pool on the floor.

" _Damn_." His eyes rake up and down her naked form.

"Your turn," she says.

Daryl's a little shy about the shared bath at first, until she offers to wash certain parts of his anatomy with extra care. "Until you get condoms," she says, "we need to be creative."

By the time they're done, a gallon of water has been splashed all over the bathroom floor, and two slightly damp, naked bodies lay curled beneath the covers of the bed.


	34. Chapter 34

Daryl asks to borrow the radio from Michonne the next morning and takes it outside to the back porch. Mason answers his call. "What can I do you for?" the Dead Ender asks.

Daryl rubs his temple. He pushes the button and spits it out quickly, "When ya come to trade, need a box of condoms for one of them beers. Just…give 'em straight to me. Don't go through Rick."

It sounds like Mason is halfway through a laugh when he comes back on. It trails to an end. "I'm already bringing a generous quantity of produce for the beer. I'll be needin' something else for the condoms."

Daryl can feel the heat growing across his cheeks. "What?"

"How about a dinner invitation? Because your woman is a fine chef."

"Damn right she is.  _My_  woman."

Mason chuckles. "So…are we invited?"

"We?"

"Well you know Javier's gonna  _come_ ," Mason says.

Daryl grunts. "Yer invited."

"I'll be needing one more thing in exchange for the condoms."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Some information."

"Hell kind of information?" Daryl asks.

"What's Dianne's favorite type of wine? Favorite varietal, I mean, from what we produce. Does she prefer Norton or Petit Verdot? Those are our reds. And does she like Petit Manseng or Viognier? Those are our whites. Blackberry wine is also an option. It's on the bittersweet side. Oh, and I can blend, too."

"Hell would I know?"

"Well, if you can find out in the next few hours, and I get that bit of information to me before I head out there, I'll bring you a box of condoms." There's a long pause and then, "Daryl?"

"Yeah. I'll find out."

[*]

Carol drives her shovel into the earth. She's still a little sore from yesterday's digging, but she'll push through, because these fields are their future. She throws a pile of dirt to the side and sees Daryl joining the work. She thought he'd hunt today, but there he is, working on another section of the irrigation, digging beside Dianne.

Carol feels an unexpected pang of petty jealousy. He built the smokehouse with Dianne, and now he's digging with her, too? Is he  _trying_  to spend time with her?

It's a ridiculous thought, she knows, but she's surprised to find him talking to the other woman. Daryl's not much of a  _talker_.

[*]

"Hard work, huh?" Daryl asks.

Dianne makes a vague noise in response and throws dirt to the side.

"Least the weather's cool, though."

Again, the woman makes a vague, guttural acknowledgment of his words.

"Makes a person thirsty."  _Fuck._  He doesn't know how to make small talk that leads into a question about a woman's favorite kind of wine.

Dianne nods to the left. "My canteen's over there if you need it."

"Nah. Don't…" He digs silently for a while and then says, "Wine Mason shared a few nights ago. Good, huh?"

"I suppose."

"'S yer favorite wine?"

Dianne kicks down on the shovel to dig it further into the earth. "A good French Bordeaux."

_Well shit._  Daryl doesn't think Virginia has any good French Bordeaux. "Mean from 'round here. Like…" What were the types Mason mentioned? "Norman. Ya like Norman?"

"Norman?"

"Yeah. Norman wine."

"I've never heard of Norman wine. Are you talking about Norton grapes?"

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah. Ya like Norton?"

"I don't know." She tosses dirt to the side. "I'm not sure if I've ever had it. Was it in the wine Mason brought?"

"Dunno." He digs silently for a while. "Petite? Ya like petite wines?"

"Small talk seems really difficult for you," Dianne says. "It's not my favorite thing in the world either. You don't have to make conversation. We can just work."

"Mhmhm." He does, for a good fifteen minutes, when he decides to be more general. "Ya like red or white wine better?'

"Depends on the meal."

"If I get a deer?" he asks.

"Then red."

He doesn't think he'll be able to get that deer today. There's not enough time to track it. "And if'n I get 'nother grouse? Or pheasant?"

"Then white."

"Mhm." Daryl digs for five more minutes and then tosses his shovel aside. "Goin' huntin'."

But he doesn't go hunting right away. Instead he borrows the radio from Michonne again, gets Mason on it, and says, "She likes white."

"Which  _one_?"

_Shit._   _Think fast._  "The second one," Daryl says.

"Viognier?"

"Yep."

[*]

When Daryl comes into the kitchen later that afternoon looking for the cleaver, Carol stops mixing her spices for the pheasant he caught. "I've never had pheasant," she says. "What does it taste like?"

"Quail but gamier."

"Oh."

"Or like bland, dry chicken," he mutters.

"That sounds like a challenge."

"Bet y'll make it taste damn good."

She smiles. "Almost plucked?"

"Mhmhm. Teachin' Henry how. And Enid and Elijah are helpin'." He locates the cleaver. He walks to the island and sniffs her and then sniffs the bowl. "Smells good."

"Me or the spices?" she asks.

"Both."

He surprises her by kissing her neck, in one quick clumsy peck that sends her tilting sideways. She laughs at the unexpectedness of the gesture.

"Sorry," he says.

"Don't be sorry. I  _like_  it."

He does that smile of his, where he bites down on his lips even as he's smiling. "Gotta get back to pluckin'."

"Hey," she calls after him as he heads to the door, and when he turns, she asks, as casually as she can manage, "What were you and Dianne talking about this morning?"

"Wine."

" _Wine?_ "

"Mason said if'n I found out what wine she likes, give me a box of condoms. So…" He shrugs.

"Well," Carol says. "It sounds like someone's getting laid tonight."

"Don't think Dianne likes 'em much."

"I didn't mean  _Mason_. I meant  _you_."

Daryl flushes, smiles, and ducks his head.

[*]

Rosita stands on the freshly constructed platform just inside the fence line that is partially obscured by trees. They're still keeping someone in the rear watch stand by the Inn, because it has a complete view of all surrounding areas, but this is the first line of response. When she spies Javier's pick-up rolling to a stop at their newly painted stop sign, she tells Rick through the walkie talkie.

"I'll send someone down to take your place," he says. "It's shift change anyway."

When Rosita opens the gate, Javier is drumming impatiently on the steering wheel with the window down. He smiles when he sees her and leans out of the window to whistle when she bends over to pull back the chain of dirt-covered spikes.

"Is that the best idea you've got in that oversized cranium of yours?" Mason asks him. " _Catcalling_?"

"Works for me, old man." Javier rolls the pick-up through the gate.

Rosita returns the spikes and closes and locks the iron gate behind her.

"Want a ride, hermosa?" Javier calls, and she hops into the backseat, which reeks of cigarette smoke.

"You smoke?" she asks. She hasn't smelt it on him before.

"Not me. Mason. All the time. In  _my_  truck. Even though I tell him not to."

"We live with the constant stench of the rotting dead," Mason says, "and y'all can't stomach a little smoke?"

Javier parks before the porch and leads Rosita around to the back of the pick-up while Mason pulls out a cloth bag full of six wine bottles.

"Look what we brought you," Javier says as he flings down the tailgate.

Rosita intends to look over the trade offering nonchalantly, but her eyes go wide. " _All_  this for a case of beer?"

The bed contains a large pumpkin, a bushel full-to-the-brim of freshly picked apples, a cardboard box with four butternut squash, six radishes, a large cabbage, two heads of broccoli, a dozen fresh eggs, and a bag of – "Are those peanuts?"

Mason comes around the bed. "Yes, ma'am."

"You grow peanuts?"

"We grow everything we  _can_  grow in Virginia soil," Mason replies. "You should try peanut soup sometime. It's a colonial Virginian specialty. But not with those. They're garlic roasted. My baby sister Henrietta makes them. The roasting softens the shell, so you can eat them shell and all. Extra fiber."

There's also a blue cooler. "What's in that?" Rosita asks.

Javier throws open the lid. There are two half gallon jugs of milk between two large blocks of ice, two whitish substances in ziplock bags, and some kind of meat wrapped in butcher's paper. "Goat's milk," Javier explains, "three cups of sheep's milk butter, and a pound of goat cheese."

"And the meat?"

"Two pounds of bacon," Mason answers. "We raise pigs. Keep the cooler closed as much as possible, and away from the fire, and the ice blocks will take days to completely melt."

"Where do you get the ice?"

"We have an ice house," Mason answers. "There are plans in that  _A Key to Our Future_  book, if y'all want to build your own. Now why don't we go inside? I can already smell Carol's fine cooking."

[*]

Mason raises his wine glass in Dianne's direction. "How do you like the wine, ma'am? The wine I brought for  _everyone_. Not for any one  _particular_  person. Just for this entire collection of fine folk?"

"Viognier's my least favorite white varietal," Dianne says as she cuts her pheasant, "but it's drinkable."

Mason lowers his glass slowly while looking pointedly at Daryl, who ducks his head to his plate.

As the meal draws to a close, Rosita begins clearing the dishes. Javier leaps up to help her, and they don't come back when the last of the wine is imbibed or even when the decaf coffee and baked apples are served, which Carol prepared from some of the bushel Javier brought and which has had sitting on the grill during dinner.

Over dessert, Mason makes conversation with Maggie, who sits to his left. He peers into the sling across her chest. "What's the H.G. stand for?"

"Hershel Glenn," Maggie answers as she shifts the sleeping baby to a more comfortable position. "Hershel was my father's name. Glenn was my husband."

"You lost Glenn when the Hilltop was attacked?"

"Before that."

Maggie talks about Glenn for a while, and Mason says, "He sounds like he was a fine young man. But the heart does heal from such wounds in time. I lost my wife at the very start of the Epidemic. But now…well," he glances across the table at Dianne, "I think I might be inclined to reach out again."

"I can't imagine ever being with anyone but Glenn," Maggie admits. "And now I have the baby to raise. H.G. - securing his future – that's the only thing I want to focus on. Besides, he already has all the father figures he could want right here." She looks around the table and nods. "I'm blessed with a huge family to help me raise my son. What Glenn and I had…it was…it was more than I can describe."

"I suppose there's something special about the bonds people forge in this world," Mason muses. "They go beyond those formed in the last one. But there's something to be said, too, for the old kind of marriage – the kind built slowly over two decades of mundane worries and petty aggravations." He looks across the table at Dianne. "Wouldn't you say so, ma'am?"

"I was only married seven years in the old world," Dianne replies as she stabs an apple with her fork. "But there were  _plenty_  of aggravations."

"You did not care for marriage?" Mason asks.

"I didn't care for my husband's wanderings."

"Ah. Well, I would not call such aggravations  _petty_." Mason leans back in his chair, away from his empty dessert plate, and pats his belly. "My compliments to the chef. And to thank the hunter…" He fishes into his front pocket and pulls out two hand-rolled cigarettes, "Why don't you join me out front, Mr. Dixon, for an after-dinner smoke? I believe we have some business to attend."

"What business?" Rick asks.

"Nothin'," Daryl mutters. "Talkin' shop." He rises and follows Mason to the front porch.


	35. Chapter 35

Daryl has smoked his cigarette halfway down in silence. Mason hasn't said anything about the condoms. He's just been smoking, too, as he leans bent over the porch rail.

"So, uh…gonna give 'em to me?" Daryl mumbles.

"For your pathetic information?" Mason replies as he stands straight. "Dianne  _hated_  the wine."

"Didn't hate it," Daryl insists.

"She said it was her  _least favorite_  white."

"Said it was drinkable."

Mason glowers at him.

"I  _tried_ ," Daryl insists. "Said she liked  _white wine_."

Mason shakes his head. Then he reaches inside his wool-lined denim jacket and pulls out a box of condoms from the inside pocket. Daryl snatches them from his hand and quickly hides them in his own pocket inside his leather vest.

They continue smoking in silence.

[*]

Javier wraps an arm around Rosita and drags her back toward him as she sits on the edge of the bed clasping her bra.

"Cut it out," she says. "We have to get dressed."

"Why? Mason hasn't come knocking."

"I was supposed to  _clean_  those dishes. Not leave them in a huge pile in the sink. And there was dessert."

Javier sits up, and the sheet slides off his taut abdomen and pools at his waist. "And a sweet, sweet dessert it was." He kisses her bare shoulder and begins slowly sliding down her bra strap.

She jerks away. "Stop. I'm serious." She stands and pulls on her panties and pants, but Javier makes no move to get out of bed. Instead he watches her until she's completely dressed, and then he slowly eases himself out and puts on his boxers.

"Are you mad about something?" he asks.

"Why would I be?"

"I don't know. Because you have a Latin temper?"

"I do  _not_  have a Latin temper." She throws his shirt roughly at him.

He catches it in one hand. "You should bring that passion back to the bed, no?" He jerks his head toward the bed. "Put it to better use."

"You should get dressed."

Javier pulls on his shirt. As Rosita steps into her boots, he puts on his jeans. "Fine, don't tell me why you're so pissed off."

"I'm  _not_  pissed off!" she yells, and then lowers her voice. "I'm not. It's just…you could have  _called_  you know."

"Called?"

"Some time in the last two days, you could have called." She puts her left boot up on the vanity and laces it tightly.

"I don't know if you know this, Rosita, but the world collapsed, and the phones aren't working."

"On the radio, asshole." She puts her foot down, raises up her other boot, and laces that.

Javier shoots her a puzzled look. "I didn't think you'd  _want_  me to."

She smacks her boot to the ground. "What's that mean?"

"It means I'm not an  _idiot_ , Rosita. I know you're only having sex with me to get better deals on the trades."

"That's not – "

"- Don't," he interrupts. "Don't bother with the lie. I know this wouldn't be happening if you had a fall harvest like us. If you weren't worried about surviving the winter." He scoops up his boots. "I'm the  _last_  man you noticed at your brother's wedding, and I'm probably one of the last men you'd notice if I wasn't lucky enough to live at Dead End." He walks barefoot out the door.

[*]

Daryl extinguishes his cigarette on the porch rail and flicks it out onto the dry dirt that extends a few feet to the wild grass. Mason follows suit and suggests, "Let's have another. My associate is taking longer to attend to his business than I anticipated."

Daryl scowls.

"You don't like Javier much, do you?" Mason asks.

"We's all family here," Daryl answers. "'N I just don't want Javier chewin' Rosita up and spittin' her out when he's done with 'er. 'S all."

"When  _he's_  done with  _her_?" Mason asks as he fishes out two cigarettes. "Oh, now  _that_  is rich."

"Hell ya mean?"

"I mean it's more a question of when  _she's_  done with  _him_. And if you're so damn concerned about lecherous men sniffin' 'round your family, why aren't you more concerned about my interest in Dianne?" Mason hands him a cigarette.

Daryl takes it. He shrugs. "Ya seem honorable enough."

"And Javier  _doesn't_?"

Daryl doesn't reply.

Mason strikes a match across the porch railing and lights his cigarette and then Daryl's before shaking out the match. "Well now that's where you're wrong, Daryl." He takes a puff and exhales. "I may have been brought up with better manners by my mama, but I have far more sins to atone for than Javier ever  _dreamed_  of committing. And if I could choose only one man in this world to have my back…" The smoke of Mason's cigarette curls toward the screen door as he points inside. "It would be  _that_  man."

Daryl lays a hand on the railing, takes a drag, and breathes out the smoke in a gray cloud.

"But I don't blame you for being wary," Mason says. "This world has taught us not to trust outsiders. It taught my people all too well. My father, especially."

Daryl thinks about that as he smokes. "Used to trust no one," he admits. "In the old world. No one 'cept my big brother Merle. 'N I only half trusted 'em." Because Mason waits patiently for him to continue, he does. "Lived like that for  _years._ Then the world fell apart. 'N I found Carol and Rick. Maggie. Rosita. Others. Sometimes I've trusted people I shouldn't of, 'n sometimes I've doubted people I shouldn't of. Sometimes it's been the same damn person." He thinks of Dwight when he says that. He sucks in and blows out smoke like a sigh. "Trustin' someone…'S always a gamble. But when it  _does_  pay….pays  _big_. 'S what I've learned." Not looking at Mason, he mutters, "Sorry for insultin' yer friend."

[*]

Javier is sitting on the top stair of the second floor and tying his boots. "Scoot over," Rosita demands.

Eyeing her warily, he does. She sits down next to him, until they're shoulder to shoulder. "Yes, I was having sex with you to get more supplies," she admits. "I was manipulating you. But you gladly  _let_ yourself be manipulated."

"By  _you_? Who  _wouldn't_?"

"And it's not true you're the last man I would notice. You can't really be unaware of how incredibly hot you are."

"For a long time I was…you know.  _Muy gordito_. And then I spent years slowly getting in shape. By the time I had  _this_  body, the world had ended. Maybe I  _don't_  know."

"Well you are," Rosita assures him. "And it's not like I didn't enjoy the sex."

"You weren't faking that?"

" _Hell no_. And you're fun to talk to. And you remind me of more innocent times. I'm not just getting supplies, Javier. I'm having  _fun_."

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah."

He smiles, and it's not his usual cocky smirk. His grin is a little lopsided. Almost boyish. "Would you like to  _keep_  having fun? With me?"

Rosita nods.

"Then let's keep having fun." He stands. "But no more sweet deals on the trades."

_Shit._  The group isn't going to be happy about that.

Javier must see the worry in her face. "I'll be  _fair_. If  _you'll_  agree to be fair."

Rosita rises. "Okay. Even trades from now on." She holds out her hand.

Javier shakes on the deal, but then he turns her hand over and raises it to his lips for a kiss.

[*]

Javier's whistling drifts through the screen door. Daryl, who's down to the last puff on his second cigarette, cranes his neck back and watches as the man steps onto the front porch.

"I take it you struck out, old man?" Javier asks Mason.

"I didn't even make it out of the dugout, amigo."

Javier laughs. He slaps a hand on Mason's shoulder. "Time to go. Your father's going to wonder why we were gone so long. And we have to think what we're going to tell him about the missing eggs and milk.  _That_  he'll notice."

[*]

Carol, wearing her favorite green silk pajamas, sits on their bed and taps the box of condoms against the open palm of her hand as the fire flickers in the fireplace. Daryl emerges from the bathroom, his scuffle still slightly damp from his face washing, wearing nothing but a pair of red boxer briefs that mold a little too flatteringly to his body. Carol's eyes linger below his waist for a moment before she draws them away.

She turns the box of condoms over. "Ribbed for her pleasure," she reads. "Sounds like Mason was thinking of me."

"Hell ya got to say  _that_  for?"

"Sorry," she says, but she's not really, because she thought it was funny. And he's kind of cute when he's riled. "Did I kill the mood?"

He walks over, takes the condom box from her hand, and puts it on the night stand. "Problem is…" Daryl gently pushes her down on her back on the bed, so that her legs are hanging off the side. "Been thinkin' 'bout ya…" He makes short work of the buttons on her silk top. "…all damn day." He slowly parts the silky lapels to reveal her bare breasts. His voice is a low growl. "So I'm gonna have to make ya forget…." He lowers his lightly chapped lips to her neck and nips., "…all 'bout…" He kisses his way down to her breasts and cups one possessively in his callused hand. "…Mason."

Carol gasps and arches her back as he closes his mouth over her breast and sharply flicks his tongue around her nipple. Daryl tortures her that way for a while before he kisses his way over to the other breast and does the same thing to it, until she's squirming and pushing up against his abdomen for relief. When she does that, Daryl kisses his way down to her navel, kneeling on the floor as he does so.

He hooks his fingers into the side of her silky green pants and slides them down. " _Damn,_ girl _._ These panties ain't got no crotch." His eyes smolder with desire when he looks up at her. He licks his lips. "Thatta hint?"

[*]

A used condom now collects in the bedside trashcan, atop a few of Carol's crumpled, discarded, handwritten experimental recipes.

Carol's chest rises and falls against Daryl's side as she lays, curled in, catching her breath from her second orgasm of the night. "Okay," she manages, "the other night must have only been a seven. Because that was definitely a  _ten_." She breathes in and out a few more times. "Where'd all this confidence come from?"

"Well, see…" Daryl wraps his arms around her. "…while ago…met this girl. Name of Carol."

"Yeah?" Carol asks.

"Mhmhm. And she told me I was an a'ight guy. 'N that I could be an even better one. Ain't nobody ever told me that before. But  _she_  did."

Carol smiles, pulls the blanket up to her chin, closes her eyes, and settles in.

"I love ya, Carol."

It's the first time he's said it since that night in Clifton, and her stomach does a bit of a nervous flop. "I love you, too, Daryl."


	36. Chapter 36

To give everyone energy for the continued digging of the irrigation, Carol uses half of the two pounds of bacon, ten of the eggs, and three of the radishes they got from Dead End to make a scramble for breakfast. Even with the vegetable padding, it spreads thin over so many people, so she serves roasted pumpkin seeds on the side.

"What did you do with the pumpkin guts?" Jerry asks.

"I pureed and jarred them," Carol says. "So we can have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving."

"Hell yeah!" Henry pumps his fist.

"Been spending time with Daryl, I see," Carol says with a smile.

[*].

Michonne and Maggie are doing inventory in the kitchen while also trying to keep an eye on the kids. H.G. sleeps in his sling across Maggie's chest, but the little girls are getting into things.

"For meat," Maggie says, "We have some canned tuna and Spam and a little canned chicken. But all that will only last two weeks, and that's at only five ounces of meat a day per person."

"Daryl's tracking a deer," Michonne says. "He says when he gets it, the meat should last us five or six days at six ounces each."

Henry hobbles over on his crutches and blocks a crawling Gracie from going out the kitchen doorway to the dining room.

"When the fields are done," Maggie says. "Dianne and Jerry can also hunt. Carol can trap. And we can preserve more meat in the smokehouse for the winter."

Judith drags Gracie back to where they were drumming on pots and pans and hands her a wooden spoon.

Maggie flips back to her notes. "In terms of the canned and boxed food that was scavenged, we have enough to last until mid-January, but that's when it gets dicey."

Michonne talks over the drumming: "And Nabila says most of the spring crop won't come in until April. We'll probably have some spinach from the greenhouse at that point, and maybe some broad beans in March, but that's it."

"The Council needs to send Jesus scavenging again," Maggie insists, "for things to trade to Dead End. And if we can get three wild turkeys, they said they'll give us fresh produce for that."

"Someone say turkey?" comes Daryl's gruff voice from the back door of the kitchen.

Judith instantly stops drumming. She stands and shouts "Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!" as she toddle-runs over to Daryl, who is holding a wild turkey upside down from its feet.

"Gobble, gobble!" Daryl corrects her.

"Din Din," Judith says.

Daryl shakes her head. "Not our din din, Gonna smoke it. Gonna be Dead End's din din. And we're gonna get lots more fresh veggies."

"No!" Judith stomps her foot.

"Need yer veggies."

She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts.

"And pumpkin pie," he reminds her, and that brings a smile to her face.

[*]

Rosita is in the rear watch stand and also on "communications duty" when the Dead End radio crackles. "Come in. Come in. This is Javier Santos."

"Hola," Rosita replies and releases the button.

"Ah, I wasn't expecting to get you right away, hermosa. Have you been standing by the radio waiting for me to call?"

She raises the radio to her mouth like she's jerking a barbell. "No. Of course not. I just have it on me at the moment. Lucky you." She scans left and then right. "So what do you want?"

"What do I want?" he asks.

She turns to the back of the stand. "Why are you radioing?"

"Uh….To check in? Like you wanted me to do."

Rosita turns to the front. "Oh yeah."

"So…" His voice grows lower. "What are you wearing?"

Rosita rolls her eyes. "Sunglasses, my cap, fingerless gloves, and an M16. Because I'm on watch."

"And nothing else?"

"That would be chilly."

Javier chuckles. "How are you?"

"We're making progress on the irrigation. You?"

"The men are harvesting, the women are canning and jarring, and the kids are pretending to help with both. And the old ones are lecturing us all on how we're doing it wrong."

Rosita chuckles. "And how's your niece? Maria was it?"

"Martina. As stubborn as ever. She won't listen to me about trying to make it up with Mason's son Carson. She thinks she's in love with Santiago."

"And you don't like Santiago?"

"He's got nothing at all going on upstairs. He can pick things out of the ground, but he can't build or plan worth shit. He can't think past today."

"Well then he must have other talents," Rosita quips.

"I don't want to think about his other talents, por favor. Listen, I have to get back to work. Just wanted to check in."

"Wait," she says. "Daryl caught a turkey today. When he gets two more, will you come to trade? Dead End wanted three for Thanksgiving, right?"

"I'll come to trade. And uh…have some fun, no?"

Rosita smiles. "Maybe."

[*]

For dinner, Carol makes a fresh butternut squash casserole with bits of bacon and a baked radish and goat cheese dish on the side. She's using up everything fresh from Dead End first, and then she'll hit the canned goods when that runs out.

"What's for dessert?" Henry asks.

"Baked apples again," Carol tells him. "And then we'll have fresh apple slices with our oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow, and then that entire bushel's already gone. The bacon's gone, and so is the squash. And half the milk." They gave Judith and Henry a full two cups each of that, because they haven't had any since the Hilltop. Gracie still gets two servings of milk a day from Nabila. "Half the cheese. A third of the butter. I'm making a broccoli, cabbage, and carrot salad for dinner tomorrow, and then most of that will be gone, too."

"It all seemed like a lot more at the time," Rosita says.

"It was a lot," Maggie tells her, "for just a case of beer. But there's nineteen of us, not counting H.G. We could be in for a rough winter."

[*]

Another day passes, and Daryl thinks he now knows where to find that deer he's been tracking. Unfortunately, his crossbow is currently in need of replacement strings, which Jesus and Aaron swear they'll find on the supply run they left for an hour ago.

In the meantime, he'll have to rely on a rifle. From their inventory, he selects the Remington 700 long-range, and now he's got it disassembled on the picnic table for a much-needed cleaning.

Henry rests his crutches against the table, sits down on the bench, and snaps up his fall jacket. "Don't you ever get cold?" he asks.

"Got my jacket on."

"It's sleeveless." Henry says.

"Got a long-sleeve shirt on under it."

"What's winter going to be like, if this is November?"

"Be fine," Daryl insists.

"Do you think Enid's too old for me?" Henry asks.

Daryl slides a cleaning rod down his disassembled barrel. "Too old how?"

"To be my girlfriend."

Daryl rips the rod out of his barrel, takes off the cleaning cloth, and sets both down on the table. "Kid, she's five years older 'n ya."

"Isn't Carol five years older than you?"

"That don't make a difference when yer forty. Makes a hell of a difference when yer barely twelve."

"Yeah," Henry says despondently. "That's what I thought. But how about when I'm thirty?"

"Won't matter when yer thirty."

"Twenty?"

"Won't matter when yer twenty."

"But by the time I'm twenty," Henry says, "I guess she'll probably be Elijah's girlfriend. Won't she?"

"Dunno," Daryl says. "Worry 'bout it when yer twenty."

[*]

Daryl doesn't get the deer – not quite yet – so Carol adds canned chicken to their cabbage, carrot, and broccoli salad.

Rosita asks Daryl why he doesn't concentrate on hunting turkey first. "We need to trade."

"Somebody needs something anyway," Tara says, and Jerry belly-laughs.

Rosita glares at Tara over her water glass.

"What?" Tara asks. "Why can't Javier just come over without an excuse?"

"For one, he's working all the time managing the harvest," Rosita says. "And for another, they're rationing gas now. For the farm equipment. So they're only leaving the vineyard if there's a really good reason to. And Amos doesn't think getting laid is a good enough reason."

"What's getting laid?" Henry asks.

"The world sure is different without television," Rick says. "I think Carl knew what that meant when he was eight."

"Sounds like Dead End would trade for gas," Maggie notes.

"Got the thirty gallons," Daryl says. "In them cans."

"But that's all we've got," Carol reminds him. "And Jesus and Aaron took five for the road, just in case. I don't think we should part with any more until we have at least fifty. Let's hope they find some."

[*]

The next morning, Daryl settles in at spot where, based on the tracks, he suspects the deer come to drink from the stream in the afternoon. He's on his stomach, buried beneath a pile of cold, damp leaves for two hours before three does finally show up.

He closes one eye until the largest deer is in his sights. Slowly, steadily, he squeezes the trigger. The blast echoes across the mountains. He has to shoot again before he brings the doe down, and by then one of the other two deer is completely out of sight. The third, and smallest, is disappearing through the half bare trees, but he manages to wound it. It keeps going.

The leaves rasp and flutter off Daryl as he scrambles to his feet. He tears off running after the second deer, his boots crunching over twigs and fallen leaves. He runs zig-zagging through the trees until he sees an open shot, and then he stops, aims, and brings the animal down.

He field dresses the deer on the spot, slings the carcass over his shoulders, and returns to the first fallen deer, only to find it being feasted upon by a walker, which stops, looks up at him, gnashes its jaws, and rises from its knees.

Daryl steps back to get some distance from it, drops the deer from his shoulders, and draws his knife just as the walker falls upon him, teeth gnashing.

Daryl's knife slides into and out of dead flesh with one quick thrust-and-pull, and the walker slumps to the forest floor.

"Mangy cur!" Daryl curses and spits on the dead walker. "That was my deer!" Now he's left with only the smaller kill.

He crouches down to rifle through the walker's pockets and finds a pamphlet from the Bed and Breakfast with a handwritten phone number on the top and the note Call me sometime. He also finds a pamphlet for Dead End Winery. Family owned and operated, the pamphlet boasts, for eighty years. That also has a phone number written on it, along with a woman's name.

"Looks like ya gotta 'round," Daryl says. "Bet ya got condoms." He pulls out the walker's wallet, and, sure enough, he finds two condom packets. He also finds about $600 in $50 bills and a driver's license that reads Cooper Weatherford. "Well shit," he says looking at the fallen walker. "You're one of theirs."

[*]

Daryl leaves the deer with Jerry and Dianne, who will butcher it and hang it in the smokehouse, and then he goes and gives the now bloody driver's license to Rosita. "Better tell Javier."

She gets on the radio and lets Javier know what they've found. "That's one of Amos's sons," he replies. "Mason's youngest brother."

"Do you want to come fetch the body for burial?" Rosita asks.

"I'm sure the Weatherfords will want to, but I feel bad for the widow."

"She's still with you?"

"Sí. And the family already had a funeral for him at the start. They assumed he was dead. She doesn't need to go through it twice."

"Well, maybe this will give her some closure," Rosita says.

"Also…uh…she doesn't know Cooper was staying at that B&B when the Epidemic started. She thought he was on a hunting trip in West Virginia with his buddies."

"I see," Rosita says. "I hope the whore turned in the night and bit his dick off in his sleep."

"Ouch. He wasn't your husband."

"So are you coming?" she asks.

"They aren't going to send me to fetch the body. I'm not blood. And even if they did, it would probably be in poor taste to use the opportunity to…uh…"

"Fuck?"

"Sí. But I'll drive over there as soon as we have a good reason to trade. Did Daryl get three turkeys yet?"

Rosita sighs. "No. We still only have one. He got a damn deer today instead."

"Never heard anyone complain about a deer before," Javier says. "I think maybe you miss me, hermosa."

[*]

Carol is on the lower watch, studying the scene with a pair of binoculars, when an unfamiliar, 1950s, bright red pick-up pulls to a stop at the stop sign. Mason is driving, but there's a young man wedged in between him and a woman on the passenger's side.

All three slide out of the truck. The woman wears a hand-knit sweater and an ankle-length denim skirt beneath which peak out a pair of brown boots. Her long white hair might make her look sixty if her face didn't make her look thirty-five. Carol guesses she's somewhere in the middle. Her silver-blue eyes search the gate.

The young man must be about nineteen or twenty. He's a freckled, red head with eyes that are more green than blue. Nothing but a fleshy scar remains where his left ear must have once been.

"Hello?" Mason calls, because it's hard to see the stand through the small grove of trees where they've buried it, or at least it will be until all the leaves drop.

Carol climbs down, weaves the short distance out of the grove of trees, across a short bit of grassy field, and then to the dirt road. She swings opens the gate.

"Howdy, Carol," Mason says without his usual cheer. "We've come to collect our kin."


	37. Chapter 37

The woman turns out be Mason's sister Dolly, the midwife. The young man is his son Carson. While Michonne sends for Rick and takes Dolly inside, Daryl helps Carson and Mason retrieve the body. After they heft the carcass into the bed of the truck, Carson clicks the tailgate shut.

"Thanks for letting us know," Mason says.

"'Course." Daryl glances at the red-headed young man. "Get bit on the ear?" he asks, because the kid's left one appears to be missing.

"No, sir," Carson replies. "I got shot during the refugee uprising. I was lucky that's  _all_  I lost."

[*]

In the library, Dolly pulls a home doppler out of a blue duffle bag. "Have you heard the heartbeat yet?"

" _No_ ," Michonne says. She looks excitedly at Rick, who sits next to her on the couch.

Rick tells Dolly, "Elijah – he's sort of our camp's doctor – only has a stethoscope."

"It's too early to hear it with that," Dolly replies. "But would you like to try to have a listen on the doppler?"

Michonne and Rick both nod eagerly and Dolly gets the battery-operated machine set up. There's nothing but static sound for a while as Dolly moves the probe about Michonne's stomach. Then something breaks through the fuzz – a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Rick sniffs and a hand flies to his eyes while I smile breaks out across Michonne's face.

"170 beats per minute," Dolly reads from the screen.

Rick's hand drops from his face. "Isn't that too fast?"

"Not this early," Dolly reassures him. "It'll slow down as the pregnancy progresses." She turns off the doppler. "Now, I'm  _not_  a doctor," she clarifies. "And I'm certainly not a surgeon. I won't be able to help if you need a C-section. But I  _do_  have some basic medical training, more than your typical midwife. And I've dealt with breech births and all sorts of challenging deliveries."

[*]

Enid and Elijah, talking and laughing, walk toward the inn from the fields where they've been digging irrigation. They stop when they see the pick-up and the visitors.

"This is my boy," Mason tells them. "Carson."

Elijah and Enid introduce themselves, and Elijah keeps throwing glances at Caron's ear.

Carson points to it. "Ugly, I know."

Enid shrugs. "I once had a boyfriend who was missing an eye. That stuff doesn't bother me. We're going in for a drink of water. Want to come?"

Carson looks to his father, who nods, and then he follows the young people inside.

As they go in, Dianne, smelling of mesquite, approaches the truck. "We got the deer butchered and the meat strung up in the smokehouse," she tells Daryl. "It's curing." She nods at the kids retreating into the house. "Who's that?"

"My boy Carson," Mason tells her.

"He doesn't look a thing like you."

"He takes after his mother. His older sister Sarah took after me. But she died at the start of the Epidemic, God rest her soul."

"My daughter died toward the start also," Dianne says. "She wasn't sick, but she got bit. The first month."

"And your husband?"

"I don't know what happened to my ex-husband," she says. "He probably survived. He could always luck his way out of messes. Usually messes of his own making."

"Sounds like you got badly burned," Mason says.

"It was a long time ago. It was another world." She nods to the men and walks on.

Mason turns and watches her walk away for a moment before turning back to Daryl. Then he slides his hand into his jacket pocket and pulls out two cigarettes. "Might as well smoke while we wait."

[*]

"I need this at Dead End," Dolly says as she puts the doppler back in the bag. "Javier's niece is pregnant, as I suppose you know. He's here often enough."

Michonne nods.

"In January, you should be able to hear the heartbeat with a stethoscope," Dolly continues. "I probably won't come out here again until early April, and then we can talk about your birth plan. When you go into labor, which I'm guessing will be toward the end of May, you can reach Mason on the radio, and he'll have me here within fifteen minutes. Provided, of course, Javier's niece Martina doesn't go into labor at the same time. But she's not due until late June."

"And Amos is okay with all this?" Rick asks.

"My father doesn't know. But what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"And what do you want in exchange?" Michonne asks.

"Just the chance to see the hope of another innocent life coming into this broken world."

[*]

"Nice kitchen," Carson says as Enid hands him a glass of water. He sits down on the bench before the table in the breakfast nook. "It's bigger than ours."

"I thought everything was bigger and better at Dead End." Enid sits down across from him and next to Elijah.

"Well, we  _do_  have an outdoor kitchen, too. And a huge dining hall. It's like one of those big wedding reception tents, with the pull-down plastic sides."

"How big is your camp?" Elijah asks him. "Javier said seven families. But how many people?"

"Why are you asking?" Carson asks suspiciously.

"Just curious," Elijah answers.

"Well it's big. Much bigger than yours. And very well-armed. And ready for  _anything_."

"Okay, relax," Enid tells him. "We aren't planning to try to invade it."

"Sorry," Carson mutters. "It's just…we've been attacked from within."

"We were attacked from without," Enid says. "And I'm  _still_  inviting you to sit at our kitchen table."

Carson sips his water bit by bit without saying anything.

To break the awkward silence, Enid says, "So I hear you're going to be a daddy."

"What? Me? No!"

"You didn't get Javier's niece pregnant?"

"Jeez, Enid!" says Elijah, flushing and looking from her to Carson and back to her.

"What?" she asks. "It's what Javier said."

"Not that it's any of your business," Carson says, "but Martina and I didn't go that far before she jilted me for Santiago. I can't possibly be the father, whatever Javier wants to believe."

"How far did – "

"- So!" Elijah interrupts Enid. "What did you do in high school, Carson? You know, for extracurriculars?"

[*]

The smoke from Mason's cigarette curls over the top of his cowboy hat and drifts back toward the truck. "Why couldn't the baby Jesus be born in Georgia?"

"Dunno." Daryl replies "Why?"

"Because they couldn't find three wise men and a virgin."

Daryl laughs around his cigarette.

"What's the definition of safe sex down in Georgia?"

"Know this one." Daryl takes his cigarette out from between his lips. "Puttin' warnin' signs on the animals that kick."

Mason touches his nose. "What's – " He stops because his son is heading down the porch stairs and toward the truck.

"Hey, Dad," Carson says as he approaches, "Elijah used to be on a robotics team at his high school, too. Can he come over sometime and look at that thing I've been building? See if he has any ideas for a work around to the battery drain?"

"I don't think your grandfather's going to welcome that idea, son. But if you want to bring your project  _here_  the next time we come to trade, you might could do that."

"But Elijah's leaving once they finish digging the irrigation and planting the fields. He's just going to take his bus and roam."

"Well, I doubt that very much," Mason says. "Given the way he looks at Enid."

Dolly comes out onto the porch with her duffle bag.

"You ready, Sissy?" Mason calls.

"I'm ready," she replies.

[*]

The next morning, Daryl takes the tail feathers of the first turkey he managed to kill and makes a sort of fan to hide behind, so that he looks like the butt end of a bird. He waits patiently, stomach down and obscured by the tall grass, in a far field where he's seen plenty of droppings.

Eventually, the turkeys come. He does the scoot and shoot and wounds one, but the other two take off in a wild, skittish frenzy. He stands, draws his knife, and finishes off the wounded bird. "Two down," he mutters. "One to go."

[*]

Jesus and Aaron roll back home that afternoon. They've scored ten cans of possibly edible food, a flask of whiskey, and only two more gallons of gas than they left with. They do, however, have one good surprise find – four solar-powered space heaters, which will be a godsend this winter. They also find spare strings for Daryl's crossbow and about two dozen arrows in a rural house.

Daryl fixes his bow on the coffee table in the first-floor living room, while Carol knocks the last cobweb out of a corner with a broom. She's already scraped out the fireplace, and it's gently burning now.

"Someone movin' in here?" he asks.

"Probably, when it gets colder, so they can be near a fireplace. There are six bedrooms without fireplaces, and only four of those space heaters." She shoots him a teasing smile, "Someone might have to sleep in  _our_  room with us."

Daryl's glower makes her laugh. "Can have the library," he mutters.

"And Nabila's got that Merlot Suite," Carol tells him. "Ezekiel could always move in with her for the fireplace."

"Little matchmaker, ain't ya?"

"I try."

[*]

Carol awakes in the middle of the night to Daryl's cursing and scratching.

"What's wrong?" she mutters.

"Goddamn fuckin' chiggers! Thought it was too damn late in the year for 'em." He's sitting up in bed. He cranes his neck all around and scratches and scratches. "What I get for lyin' in the grass."

She sighs. "I know we cleared some hydrocortisone out of that pharmacy aisle at the general store. I'll go get it."

Later, when she's sitting cross-legged behind him on the bed and rubbing the cream on all the bites on the back of his neck, he mutters, "Guess this is the  _worse_  of the  _for better or worse_  part, huh?"

Her fingers still on his neck as the implications of his words sink in. "You…do you think of us as married?"

He turns on the bed, until he's almost facing her, with one leg drawn up. His teeth find a hangnail on his thumb. "Ya don't?"

"I…" She blinks.

"Mean…" His thumb falls to the bed. "Ya told Mason we ain't officially married. So don't that mean we's  _unofficially_  married?"

Carol thinks maybe her heart stops beating for the tiniest of moments. She swallows the insane mixture of emotions that are spilling up into her throat and mind, but they come out in a little hiccup. "Yes," she says. "Yes. We're unofficially married."

He nods, like that's all he needs to know, and then he turns back around again. "Get the ones on my shoulders, too. Itch like hell."

[*]

The sun rises on a chilly, November morning at Hillcrest Vineyards. The irrigation is dug, and planting has begun in the fields. Most of that small deer is devoured, except what they'll be eating tonight for dinner, and three turkeys now hang in the smokehouse, awaiting trade.

"Your people will finish planting the fields tomorrow," Elijah tells Enid as they sit under the gazebo, watching the leaves float down from the trees and blanket the earth in a quilt of yellow, gold, and red.

"And that means you're leaving?" she asks.

"Well…I've been thinking. What if Michonne needs a C-section? And she loses too much blood during surgery? She'll need me to help with the blood transfusion. She'll need the things in my bus. I guess I should probably stay until May. Until she has the baby. You know…in case I'm needed."

"You  _are_  needed, Elijah." Enid leans over and kisses his cheek. When he turns toward her in surprise, she kisses his lips, too.

[*]

"Hell ya lookin' at?" Daryl asks as he swings his crossbow on his back.

Carol is standing by the bedroom window, a white terry cloth bathrobe tied over her naked form. They rose with the sun this morning, but then they made love lazily beneath the thick quilt, and Daryl has just finished dressing.

"Enid just kissed Elijah."

"Well don't go creepin' on 'em."

Carol draws the curtains closed. "I'm  _not_  creeping on them. But Enid doesn't have a mother. Someone's going to have to look out for her."

"How come ya ain't worried 'bout lookin' out for Elijah? She's the one kissed him, ain't she?"

"Fair point." She walks over to her dresser and opens it and starts drawing out clothes. "Like  _you_  don't have double standards."

"Yeah, but mine make more sense."

Carol laughs.

[*]

The Dead Enders arrive in the late afternoon, perhaps because they know they'll be invited to stay for dinner if they do. Carson is riding in the bed of Javier's big black pick-up, and he vaults himself out when it jerks to a stop before he porch. Javier and Mason exit the cab.

Elijah clamors down the stairs as Carson throws down the tailgate. The two young men slide out a huge cardboard box with some kind of machine on conveyer-belt-style wheels inside of it. Each holding one end of the box, they carry it together around the back of the inn.

"What in the hell is that?" Rosita asks.

"Carson's latest toy," Javier tells her.

"It's a solar-powered, battery backed-up, precision robot seeder," Mason elaborates.

Rosita rolls her eyes toward him. "Can you say that in English?"

"When he gets it to work more efficiently," Mason explains, "It'll roll across the fields and detect the best location for planting seeds and insert the seeds at the proper depth."

"What do you have for us?" Rick calls as he walks toward the pick-up. He comes to a stop by the lowered tailgate.

"A portable electric pump for cleaning out your septic tank," Mason says. "Yours to  _keep_. This is our backup. My father wanted to hold onto it in case ours breaks, but I trust my brother Garrett's ability to fix anything. So now it's yours. "

Javier pulls out a portable power pack. "We also recharged this for you from our solar bay, so you can run the pump a few times."

"And there's the gourds," Mason says, jerking his thumb toward the pick-up.

Rick peers into the bed, which now contains only three small colorful gourds.

"This is all very useful," Rick says. "Sanitation is essential, but…uh…we were expecting a bit more. More  _food_  especially." He looks at Rosita.

Rosita peers at Javier. "I thought you were going to lend us your pump regularly as part of our past deal." She didn't think the  _old_  sweet deals were off the table, too.

"Yes, but now you  _own_  one," Javier says. "So even when we can't get here, because of snow or what – "

"- We  _need_  food," Rosita interrupts. " _Three_  turkeys? That's almost thirty pounds of meat. We might as well keep them."

Javier laughs. "That's not  _all_ , hermosa." He walks to the door of the extended cab and pulls it open.

The seats and floor are completely covered. There's a large crate full of cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and turnips. Next to that is a burlap sack. "Sweet potatoes," Javier says. Then there's a bushel full of apples. A cardboard box holds two bunches of grapes, two bags of peanuts, and "three dozen fresh eggs," Javier tells her.

On the floor sit two large red coolers. "Three gallons of milk," Javier explains. "Four pounds of cheese, five pounds of butter, four pounds of bacon, eight pounds of mutton, and a twelve-pound ham."

Rick laughs. " _Now_  you're talking." He whistles over some others to help unload.

When the truck is empty, and Mason is following Rick inside the inn, Javier clicks shut the tailgate. Rosita says, "I thought I wasn't getting anymore sweet deals from you?" The content of the coolers alone probably would have been worth the trade.

Javier shrugs. "What can I say? Our people really want turkey for Thanksgiving. And also…maybe I missed you."

"So you're saying you're horny?"

"It's been  _days and days_ , hermosa."

Rosita seizes his hand and tugs him toward the inn.


	38. Chapter 38

"I brought your least favorite  _red_  wine this time," Mason tells Dianne as he pours the wine into her glass with a slight turn of the bottle. Next he fills Jerry's glass and then Enid's, Elijah's and then Carson's.

Enid looks at Elijah, smiles, and takes a small sip of the wine. She purses her lips, and Elijah laughs.

"Well, I like it," Elijah says.

Enid pushes her glass over to him. "Then you can have two glasses."

" _Everyone_  can have two glasses tonight," Mason says. "We're bottling the new vintage now. Out with the old." He opens another bottle, and when the cork pops, Judith, who is sitting on Daryl's lap because the table is too crowded for her to have her own seat, covers her ears. Mason pours that bottle until it's empty and opens a third. He passes over Michonne and pauses over Nabila. "No thank you," she says. He pours for Ezekiel, and then pauses by Henry, who is the last in line.

"Can I?" Henry asks.

Henry is about the same age Carl was that night at the CDC, and Rick grits his teeth. But then he says, "Pour the boy an ounce."

Mason pours two. When everyone has a glass and is seated, Mason raises his. "A toast, to our hosts, and to the fine chef who prepared this venison, and to the hunter who bagged it."

"Booyah!" Daryl shouts and Judith echoes him with a higher pitched,  _Booyay_!

When everyone is eating and drinking, Tara asks, "Did the Little Einsteins have any luck? With the Death Star on wheels, or whatever that thing was?"

"It's a mobile precision seeder," Carson says. "And Elijah helped me figure out a program patch that can help keep the battery from draining too fast."

"So you know medicine  _and_  robotics?" Enid asks Elijah. "That's impressive."

Elijah smiles. "I actually wanted to go to college to be an engineer. But my mom taught me everything she knew about bloodwork before she died. Then I taught myself a lot from medical books. You have a lot of time to study when you're alone."

"Sorry to keep you from studying," Enid teases.

Elijah flushes. "I don't mind."

Mason sips his wine and then raises it to Dianne. "I trust you find the wine  _drinkable_ , ma'am?"

"It's interesting," she replies. "I think I taste a little leather."

"And do you enjoy the taste of leather in the evening?"

Jerry laughs until his belly shakes. Henry looks at Jerry and laughs, too, even though it's pretty clear the boy doesn't know what they're laughing about.

Mason sets down his glass with a clink. "I apologize, ma'am. I swear I did not intend for that to sound as suggestive as it did."

"That's a shame," Dianne replies. "I was about to think it was the first funny thing you've said all evening."

Mason smiles.

Farther down the table, Tara asks Javier, "So how's your niece? Is there going to be a wedding?"

"There's going to be a wedding," Javier answers. "But my niece has decided on Santiago." He looks across the table at Carson. "Don't look so relieved, muchacho! If that baby comes out at all fair-skinned, you're still going to help."

"I think we  _both_  know who's  _really_  going to end up raising that baby." Mason lifts his glass to Javier. "Get your diaper changin' table ready, amigo."

Rosita laughs, and so does Javier, and then Henry, who only has a slightly better idea what he's laughing about this time around. But the laughter is contagious, and soon everyone is joining in.

When it's time for coffee and dessert – which is canned peaches - Rosita clears the dinner dishes, and Javier jumps up to help, but neither one comes back to the table.

"I think someone's having seconds," Tara says.

Carol smiles at Daryl, who smiles back as he feeds Judith a cut-up piece of slippery peach.

The little girl slurps it down. Her blue eyes grow wide, and she says. "Yummy yum YUM!" She turns slightly in Daryl's lap, pats his stomach, and commands, "Unca D eat one."

[*]

The cigarettes are burned halfway down. The off-white paper curls toward the top, and the tips burn red.

"Thanks for the smoke," Mason says.

"It's yours anyhow," Daryl replies.

"But traded, and now given back." Mason picks a fleck of tobacco from his tongue. From behind him, Dianne emerges to go relieve Morgan on watch. Mason tips his hat to her but doesn't attempt to say anything.

She's a few paces down the porch when she turns. "My weapon has served me well."

"Pardon?" Mason asks.

She pats her long bow. "You insulted it when we first met. You implied it wasn't useful."

"Ask it to forgive me."

Dianne's countenance is a stern reply, but then the slightest hint of a smile curves just one side of her lips. She turns and walks on.

"Either I've seriously lost my game," Mason says when she's out of earshot. "Or that is one tough nut to crack."

"Porque no los dos?" Javier asks as he steps onto the porch and joins them at the rail.

"I suppose you've been having better luck than me, amigo?" Mason asks.

"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell."

"No indeed," Mason replies. "He does not  _need to_  when his lady sports a megaphone."

Javier smirks and slaps Mason's shoulder. "Come on, old man. Curfew's in half an hour."

"Ain't fifty-six a little old for a  _curfew_?" Daryl asks.

"It's for security," Mason replies.

"The lock checker goes around at ten p.m. every night," Javier explains, "and checks that all of the bedroom doors are locked. It makes his job easier if everyone honors curfew."

"Hell ya got a guy checkin' bedroom locks for?"

"In case anyone dies at night, of course," Mason says. "So he doesn't turn and go wandering about devouring sleeping people."

"Huh." They've had that happen  _twice_  now –when the wounded turned at the Hilltop, and before that, when Patrick died in the prison. "But what if someone needs to go take a piss? And he dies on the way?"

"A lock checker is always on duty during sleeping hours," Javier says. "From ten p.m. to the crow of the rooster. He walks all the halls of the main house and checks all the locks repeatedly. He checks the bathrooms and the common rooms and the kitchen. He goes to the guest house and to the servant's quarters and back to the main house. He repeats the patrol all night long. If someone is out of their room, he makes sure he knows where they are and that they get back alive and that they lock up when they do. If someone dies and turns, the lock checker takes care of it. We've had two old ones die in their sleep."

"My stepmother," Masons says, "last year. And my 89-year-old aunt the year before that. God rest their souls." He looks at Daryl with disbelief. "Y'all don't have a lock checker?"

[*]

The next morning, there's a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, and grapes before people head off to work.

Rick organizes a construction team and, using  _A Key to Our Future_ , gets started on an ice house. Rosita reloads ammunition in the garage using the press Jesus found. Maggie insists on taking watch in the rear stand and climbs the ladder with some difficulty at first, but quickly gains her footing. Michonne takes the lower watch. Jesus and Elijah begin to redesign the wine cellar for use as a root cellar for storing next spring's harvest. Daryl hunts, and Dianne fishes. Inside, Henry amuses the girls and the baby while Nabila cleans.

On the porch, Carol and Enid do the laundry by hand in a big tin bucket. Carol hands Enid a shirt, and she wrings it out in the grass over the rail before draping it on the railing. They'll put them on a clothes line later. "Elijah's really settling in," Carol observes.

Enid smiles. "Yeah. He says he's going to stay until the baby's born, in case Michonne needs him. But I don't think he'll be leaving then either."

"Any  _particular_  reason he might want to stay?"

Enid flushes and rings out another shirt before draping it over the rail.

"Enid," Carol says. "Sit a minute." Enid takes the rocking chair next to the bucket. As Carol scrubs, she says, "I know I'm not your mother. But I never got the chance to have this talk with my own daughter, so…here goes."

"You think he's too old for me?"

"No. I think he would have been too old for you in the old world. If my Sophia was a junior in high school, and she wanted to date a sophomore in college?" She shakes her head. "But in this world, you've both been forced to become adults already. I just want to make sure you know that you can take things slowly."

"I  _know_ ," Enid says with a roll of her eyes.

"Don't let him pressure you."

Enid laughs. "I have more experience than Elijah does."

Carol blinks.

"Not  _that much_  experience," Enid clarifies. "Carl and I never did anything more than kiss. Ron and I did a  _little_  more, because…I don't know why. Because he tried and I let him."

Carol hasn't thought about Ron Anderson or his brother Sam in a while, or about their abusive father Pete, or about their mom Jessie, who might have ended up with Rick if she hadn't died. It's a strange thought. Carol can't imagine Rick with anyone but Michonne now. "You don't  _have_  to  _let_  any boy do anything."

"I  _know_  that now. I knew it then, too. I was just…I don't know. I didn't even  _like_  Ron." She sighs. "And I loved Carl." She grits her teeth.

"I know, sweetie," Carol says quietly, and sniffles, and fights back the rising tears, but not enough to prevent a fine mist from gathering over her eyes. She blinks it away.

Enid clears her throat. "Anyway, Elijah's like Carl. He's sweet. He's not going to be pushy. And he'd never even kissed a girl before me."

" _Really_?"

"He was kind of a nerd in high school. Can you imagine?"

Carol laughs. "I can."

Enid smiles. "And then the apocalypse happened. He's never had a girlfriend."

"Well, I hope you two take it slowly, because you're still very young. But if you  _do_  decide to become sexually active, I have a box of condoms in my room. I'll hold two aside for you.  _Ask_  me for one first."

"Shh!"

Carol follows Enid's gaze and finds Elijah approaching the inn from the winery building. He mounts the far stairs and makes his way across the planks, a crooked smile dimpling his coffee-and-cream-toned cheeks. "I'm done with the storage redesign. Need any help with the laundry?"

[*]

Dianne catches just enough fish for dinner, which is good, because the deer Daryl's been tracking alludes him. They have a fish fry with fresh stir fry veggies, and the Council lingers at the dining room table afterward.

When the discussion is drawing to a close, Daryl splurts, "Need a lock checker."

"A what?" Rick asks.

Daryl explains how Dead End operates. "Not all night maybe. Break the shift in half. Rotate."

"That seems like a waste of manpower," Rick says, "when we already have two night watchmen."

"They's outside," Daryl reasons. "Lock checker'd be  _inside_. "

"And if something goes down outside," Carol suggests, "then that's one more person already armed and dressed, awake and ready to fight instantly."

Daryl nods. "Yeah. 'Zactly."

"That's less sleep," Rick counters. "And less energy for work the next day. If we rotate two watchmen and one lock checker in half shifts, that's six people who don't get a full night's sleep. Almost 40% of our adult manpower on duty every night?"

" _Twice_  it's happened to us now, Rick!" Daryl growls. "Hell we gonna learn?"

"People were awake when it happened on the Hilltop," Rick says. "Infirmary workers. The night watch. It didn't stop it."

"But they weren't  _checkin'_  everywhere. Weren't makin' rounds. Weren't lookin' for people who might of – "

"- Let's vote," Maggie interrupts. "All in favor of a lock checker?" She raises her own hand.

Carol raises her hand, then Daryl raises his, and then Ezekiel.

Rick looks around at all the raised hands, shrugs, and raises his.

[*]

Shining his flashlight, Daryl walks across the foyer and peers into the library. It's empty. He walks on down the hall, through the expansive kitchen, past the island stove, beyond the country-style table in the breakfast nook, past the back door, and through the open doorway to the attached dining room.

The beam of the flashlight casts an eerie glow on the oil paintings. His footsteps trod out the other side of the dining room and back into the foyer and then down the hall to the master suite. He turns the knob of Rick's door and pushes, and it doesn't give. He walks back down the hallway through the foyer and down another hallway into the first-floor living room.

The living room is empty, and he treads back through the foyer and makes his way quietly up the stairs, finding each little creak deafening. He walks to the far end of the hallway and peers into the billiard room. Jerry is snoring with the speed of a chain saw on the couch. No wonder Henry asked him for those little orange shooting ear plugs last week. The boy's chest rises and falls as he lays curled up in his nest on the floor, his back to the waning fireplace.

Daryl heads down the second-floor hallway. He tries Morgan's door. Locked. He tries Tara and Dianne's door across the hall. Locked. He paces on and jiggles the nob to the Merlot suite, which is Nabila's. It's locked. He moves across the hall to Rosita's room. Locked. He moves down the hall to Ezekiel's room. Locked.

He treads back over the worn hallway carpet and up to the third floor and all the way down to the end. In the third-floor living room Elijah is still awake and is reading a textbook by the glow of a kerosene lantern and looking over the blueprints Carson left him. "Gonna build us one of 'em planter robot thingamajigs?" Daryl asks.

"When Carson brings me the parts I need. He said he would, as a thank you for finding the coding work-around."

"Glad ya stuck with us, kid." At barely twenty, Elijah already has more useful knowledge in that brain of his than Eugene ever did.

Daryl turns and walks to the Chardonnay room, which is empty, because Carol is on lower watch.

He tries Enid and Gracie's door a little farther down and across the hall. Locked. He tries the door for Maggie and H.G. Locked. He can hear the baby crying inside, and then cooing.

He walks onto the last room and turns the knob and pushes, expecting it to be locked, but instead it gives and opens.

"Jesus!" Aaron cries, and Daryl's not sure if he's saying it  _to_  Jesus or using it as an exclamation of annoyance at the door being opened on a very private scene.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Daryl mutters and yanks the door shut. "Lock yer damn door!" He calls through the wood, and then, flushing an almost beet red, strides back to the stairs. He walks down them quickly all the way to the foyer.

Maybe Rick was right. Maybe this lock-checking thing wasn't the brightest idea he ever had.


	39. Chapter 39

The trees have shed all their leaves, and Henry has shed his crutches. On the last day of November, Mason arrives at Hillcrest, not in a pick-up, but riding a dark brown gelding. He trots the animal to a stop before the porch where Carol is sewing a patch into Daryl's favorite pair of worn workpants and Dianne is doing laundry in a big metal bucket.

Mason dismounts, ties the gelding loosely to the post at the bottom of the stairs, and tips his hat to Dianne. "You mentioned you had horses in your Kingdom, and that you missed yours. I've brought mine. His name is Bullseye. I thought you might like to go for a Sunday afternoon ride."

Dianne stands. She dries her hands, walks to the porch railing where she's leaned her bow and quiver, and puts them on. The she treads down the stairs and flips the horse's reins from the post. "Don't mind if I do," she says.

Mason smiles, but then she just vaults onto the horse, kicks its side, and gallops off alone around the back of the inn and onto the dirt path that leads past the greenhouse and through the woods.

"That's not quite how I envisioned this transpiring," Mason says as he mounts the stairs and settles into the empty rocking chair beside Carol.

Carol chuckles. "Is that all you came to do? Offer Dianne a Sunday afternoon ride?"

"No, ma'am. I did not ride so far just for that. I came to trade my horse to you. Bullseye is a sturdy, gentle animal. He can pull a plow or a cart, and he can get you from point A to B."

"And you don't need him?"

"Two of our mares have foaled, and the kids the goats had last spring are growing, and well…we're only going to have so much room in the barns this winter. I know you've got a barn here and plenty of the right sort of grass to graze him on. I'll supply heavy blankets for the winter, a bale of hay for when the grass is buried, and riding gear. Spare shoes. Apples and sugar cubes too."

Carol ties off her thread and cuts it. "In exchange for what?"

"I know your Messiah came back from his supply run yesterday with three 55-gallon steel drums full of gas."

Carol turns Daryl's pants inside-out to check the stitch. "Jesus did make an exceptional find, but…how did you know that?"

"Javier checks in with Rosita every evening on the radio. I was thinking one of those drums. For the horse and all the accessories. 55 gallons."

"I'd have to run it by the Council, but it sounds like a fair trade on the surface." They need gas, but they would still have 110 gallons. And all the gas will spoil eventually. A horse might last for  _years_. They could always  _eat_  the horse if worse came to worse, too, not that she would tell Mason  _that_.

Carol is rethreading her needle to sew a patch on the other knee when the screen door opens and Rosita steps out. "Is Javier with you?"

"He's on his way with my son," Mason answers, "so Carson and Elijah can hang out and my boy doesn't feel like the only geek left in the world. Besides, I might need a ride home. And maybe so will a drum of gasoline."

"I  _do_  have to run it by the Council first," Carol says. "And Daryl is out hunting. Ezekiel's in the far fields. We don't usually meet until just after dinner."

"Well, then, I reckon we'll have to stay for dinner."

"All three of you?" Carol asks. She's already put a grouse and rice casserole in the cast iron dutch oven on the grill. It's got two more hours to cook, and she's not sure how far it will stretch.

"What if we contributed five bottles of wine, two fresh baked loaves of bread, and two sweet potato pies to the meal?"

"Then I'd say you're invited," Carol tells him.  _Bread?_  It's been a long time since she's had bread. She tried her hand at some in the prison, but it didn't turn out as well as she'd like.

"Good, because here they are."

Javier's truck rumbles up the road and bounces to a stop with one wheel on the stone walkway to the inn. Carson gets out, throws down the tailgate, and starts drawing out a cardboard box full of machine parts. Javier heads straight for the porch. He smiles at Rosita and says to Mason, "Go unload the food, old man. I'm going to be a few minutes."

"A  _few_  minutes?" Rosita asks she opens the screen door.

"The best few minutes of your life, hermosa." Javier slaps her on the ass and chases her, laughing, up the stairs.

[*]

Javier's asleep. Rosita's not sure what she's supposed to do with that. Usually he dresses soon after they have sex and heads back to Dead End to work, or they both go down to dinner, but this time, dinner is not for at least another hour, and he rolled over in her bed and fell asleep.

She thinks she should probably wake him up, but the thing is, she's in no hurry to get out of this warm bed. She's already done all the reloading she can for the day, and she doesn't have watch until night. Besides, Javier's cute when he sleeps. He's curled up on his side, away from her, and he's hugging the spare pillow as if it was teddy bear. The blanket has slipped down to his waist, and she can admire his broad shoulders and sinewy back.

It's the tattoo between his shoulder blades that keeps drawing her eyes, though, the one she's never asked him about - a big heart with a banner across the bottom, and on each end of the banner, two names – Camila and Isabela.

She traces the heart gently with a single fingertip, and he stirs. He stretches out of his fetal position and rolls over to face her, blinking his eyes sleepily. She pretends not to have been touching him.

"Did I doze off?" he asks.

"For about fifteen minutes."

He rubs his eyes.

"Who are Camila and Isabela?" Rosita doesn't mean to ask it. This thing they're doing isn't supposed to be too personal. It's supposed to be  _fun_. She tries to be flippant, so it doesn't sound like she cares too much. "Best threesome you ever had?"

"My daughters."

"Oh. I didn't know you ever…"

He runs a hand across his mouth. "They were five years old when the Epidemic started. Twins."

"And…they're gone now?"

"I was helping to manage Dead End and living in the servant's house when it all started," he says. "They were with my ex-wife in Herndon. I went to get them and their mother, along with some of my extended family, and bring them all to Dead End. I thought it would be a good place to ride it out until the government found a cure. But on the way …." He shakes his head. "We got overrun. I was divided from my girls, and I couldn't do…" He swallows. "I couldn't do a damn thing to help them. There were fourteen of us, but only four survived – me, my brother, his wife, and my niece. My brother and sister-in-law died in the refugee uprising at Dead End. So now it's just me and my niece."

Rosita's quiet for a while. She doesn't know why she's asking all these personal questions. "Why did you and your wife divorce?"

He sighs and throws himself on his back beside her. "They say there are always signs, but I swear, I didn't see  _any_  signs. I thought we had a good marriage. I thought we were happy."

Rostia lies back beside him. "But you weren't?"

" _She_  wasn't. I didn't cheat, I didn't mistreat her. I loved her. I guess it wasn't enough. I came home from work one day when the girls were three, and she was packing. And I thought – are we going on vacation? Am I forgetting some trip she told me about? Was I supposed to take vacation time? And she tells me she's leaving, and she's taking the girls, and still – I'm standing there thinking – are they going on vacation without me? It took a while, for the message to get through."

"Jesus."

"She told me she didn't love me anymore, that she hadn't for a while. She swore there was no one else at first, but of course there was. And when I found out there was, it was almost a relief. At least it made  _sense_  then. Why she was leaving."

"You think that made it better? I thought it made it worse."

Javier turns his head to her. "Someone left you for another woman?"

Rosita doesn't look at him. She looks at the ceiling instead. "I found Abraham at the start of the Outbreak. I followed him all the way from Texas to Virginia. Supported his mission. Stuck with him through so much. We settled in this place called the Alexandria Safe Zone for a while. I came home to our bedroom one day. Like you, I found him packing." She laughs bitterly. "I thought he was packing for a supply run."

"But he wasn't."

"No. And I'll never forget what he said to me."

"What was that?" Javier asks.

"When I first met you," Rosita says coolly, her eyes fixed on the white stucco pattern above, "I thought you were the last woman on earth. But you're not."

"Jesuscristo," Javier breathes.

Rosita clinches her jaw when she realizes she hasn't ever really forgiven Abraham that. She didn't stop loving him. She was still in love with him the day she watched him die. She even forgave Sasha for loving him, but she hasn't quite forgiven him those  _particular_   _words_. "He'd found someone else," she says. "And the shit of it was…he actually  _loved_  her. That made it  _so_  much worse. Because that meant…" She chokes on her words and shuts her mouth tightly. Why is she telling Javier  _any_  of this?

"It meant what?"

"Nothing." It meant she's not the kind of a girl a man loves. She's the kind of girl a man fucks. Everyone else gets to be loved – Carol by Daryl, Michonne by Rick, Maggie by Glenn, Sasha by Abraham, Sherry by Dwight. But not Rosita. Never Rosita. Well fuck it. It doesn't matter. She doesn't  _need_  love. She needs to survive. And sometimes she needs an itch scratched. That's  _all_  she  _needs_. "Never mind."

Javier rolls on his side and slings an arm around her waist. It's too uncomfortable, the way his coffee brown eyes are searching hers. She turns her face away and closes her eyes. He bends his head and kisses her bare shoulder. "He sounds like a fool to me," he murmurs. "A woman like you…beautiful." He kisses her shoulder again. "A beast in bed."

Rosita huffs through her nose. Yeah, she's good in bed. That's what she's good for. Good for fucking.

But Javier doesn't quite stop there. "Brave. So  _very_  brave. Competent. The things you can do, Rosita…you've picked up a hundred things on your journey. Someone shows you something once, and you've got it. And you're loyal. To have seen your people as far as you have, through as much as you have. This Abraham? He didn't know what he had."

Rosita wills the tears to stay trapped behind her eyelids, and they almost do. The single tear that escapes, Javier kisses away. Rosita rolls to him, pushes him down on his back, and slides herself atop him. "Fuck me," she pleads.

"No," he says. "I'm not going to fuck you."

She looks at him with mixed confusion, hurt, and anger. "Why not?"

"Because, hermosa…" Javier rolls her over, underneath himself, and bends to kiss her. He kisses her forehead, then her cheek, then her ear. In her ear, he whispers, "I'm going to make love to you."

[*]

Carol has finished Daryl's pants, hemmed Henry's pants, done the laundry Dianne left behind in the bucket, hung it out to dry, and now she's sewing some buttons onto a shirt for Rosita - again. She wonders what Rosita does to lose so many buttons.

The whole time Mason has just been rocking, talking, smoking, and occasionally rising and walking to the end of the porch to peer around the back of the Inn to see if Dianne has come out of the path through the woods yet. Now he grinds out his cigarette on the porch rail, flicks the butt over onto the earth, sits down in the rocking chair, and looks at his watch. "Dianne's been gone almost an hour."

"Well, an hour's not all that long for a  _Sunday afternoon ride_ , is it?" Carol asks.

Mason scowls and rocks. He taps his fingertips on the wooden handrails of the rocking chair. He takes off his cowboy hat, punches the top down, and then punches it back up. He adjusts the brim, and then he puts it back on.

The thunder of hooves comes faintly from the distance and then grows nearer. The horse gallops around the inn and Dianne stops the animal before the porch. She dismounts and ties the horse to the porch rail. "Thank you for the ride," she says.

"My pleasure," Mason replies. "Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

Dianne's mouth almost creeps into a smile. She pets the horse. "He's a good boy."

"He's yours if the Council approves the trade for a drum of gasoline," Mason replies.

"That's cheap," Dianne replies. "I hope you're not expecting any other form of payment."

"No, ma'am. I would not dream of attempting to purchase your affection. I doubt very much I could afford it."

Dianne adjusts her quiver. Mason stands and offers her his rocking chair. "No thank you," she says. "I have to go practice target shooting."

"But you'll be joining us for dinner later?"

She nods.

"Good," he says as he sits back down in the chair. "Because I brought us all some terrible blackberry wine."

"I love blackberry wine." Dianne turns and begins walking toward the path that bends around the inn. "It's my favorite."

"Well I'll be damned," Mason mutters as she disappears around the side of the great house. He rocks. He taps his fingers on the armrests. Then he says, "Can I help you with anything, ma'am?"

"Typical man," Carol answers. "Wait until I'm on the very last thing to offer."

"My apologies." Mason rises, paces to the end of the porch, stands with his hand resting on his silver belt buckle for a moment, and then asks, "What on God's green earth is Daryl dragging our way?"

Carol knots the thread, cuts it off, and puts her needle in the pin cushion. She drapes the shirt over the rocking chair's post and stands. She strides down to the porch and stands next to Mason.

Daryl is dragging something by ropes on a tarp-like sled of sorts. He's filthy, covered in mud and blood and she doesn't know what else. The sled slides over the dirt road and then across the grass toward the Inn. When he's a few feet from where she stands on the porch, he drops the rope and steps aside from the drag sled.

Carol looks down at the large, hairy, blood-matted, black mass before her.

"Finally won m'girl a bear," he says.


	40. Chapter 40

Daryl's filthy boots, sweaty socks, muddy pants, and torn, bloody flannel shirt lie in a pile by the dresser. He sits on the edge of the bed in his boxers and hisses as Elijah cleans the claw wound on his left side with hydrogen peroxide. "Sorry," Elijah says. "It has to be done."

Carol stands in the doorway of their bedroom and shakes her head. "What were you  _thinking_?" she asks.

"This is antibiotic I'm putting on now," Elijah explains as he continues his work.

"Seriously, Daryl," Carol says. "You can't hunt a bear  _alone_."

"Weren't like it was a grizzly bear," Daryl insists. "Just a little black bear."

"And this is a numbing ointment," Elijah continues, "so it won't hurt as much when I do your stitches."

"Little?" Carol asks. "That thing must have been over two hundred pounds!"

" _Pft_." Daryl scoffs. "Ain't gonna be a third that much by the time Jerry's done bonin' it."

" _Daryl_ ," she scolds as Elijah threads his needle.

"Didn't mean to," Daryl admits. "Distracted trackin' a deer. Stumbled on his den. Thing was gettin' it ready. Gonna be hibernatin' soon. Pissed 'em off. Was him or me."

"Well I'm glad it was him," she says with a smile, walks over, and kisses his forehead. "Do you want me to bring your dinner up here?"

"Nah. Come down when I's all stitched up."

"No hunting for two days," she says. "You're resting."

"Need to fill that smoke house 'fore winter."

"I'll set traps tomorrow. Dianne will do some hunting. But  _you're_  resting."

"Yes'm," Daryl mutters.

"Good thing you weren't wearing your favorite leather vest," she says. "I'm not sure I could have put it back together as well as Elijah is putting you back together."

[*]

Daryl and Elijah join the dinner party after the wine is already poured and the first bite taken.

"I'm looking forward to those bear steaks," Mason says as Daryl sits down in the empty chair next to Carol, "next time we come to trade."

Daryl grunts.

Elijah and Carson wolf down their dinner and excuse themselves to go work on Elijah's robot, and Enid, who sits on the other side of Carol, whispers, "I'm getting a little jealous."

"It's good they've made friends," Carol tells her. The two communities are knitting closer and closer together. That will mean more and better trade. "And who knows, maybe they'll design some really useful technology."

When dessert – the sweet potato pies Dead End brought - is served, Mason reaches for a not-quite-empty bottle of wine and tops Dianne off.

"How much wine do your people  _have_?" she asks.

"Well," Mason answers, "my family had over 9,000 bottles between the winery and their own personal cellar when the Outbreak happened. And then we looted another 10,000 bottles or so from the other wineries. And that's not to mention the barrels."

Rick whistles.

"Wow," Michonne mouths.

"We're still making about 500 bottles a year," Mason continues. "My family does not wish to fully abandon its art. Of course, we use most of the land to grow other things now."

"So you've always been with the family business?" Maggie asks. "Always lived at Dead End?"

"No. I left home at eighteen to join the Border Patrol. It angered my father something awful, that I'd rejected the family business, but I had to strike out on my own. I went to the academy in Charleston. Got stationed in San Diego, which is where I met my wife. Then I got moved to Nogales. Then El Paso. I retired with twenty years on the job at ripe age of 39 and moved to Charlottesville, Virginia for my wife's university job. She'd put her career on hold for mine, and now it was my turn to support her."

"So you played Mr. Mom?" Dianne asks, looking halfway between skeptical and impressed.

"More or less. Carson was three when I retired, and and my daughter was eight. I worked part-time here and there. Did some gunsmithing. Taught some firearms classes. Dabbled in a little home brewing business. Anyhow, when the Epidemic came, and my wife and daughter died, I knew my boy's best chance of surviving an apocalypse would be at Dead End. So I ran back home with my tail between my legs."

"I don't suppose we'll ever be allowed to set foot in Dead End?" Carol asks.

"That's not for me to decide," Mason says. "That – "

"The hell?" Daryl's chair scrapes back across the hardwood floor. He seizes the butt of his hunting knife, winces at the pain the sharp reach causes to his stitched side, and then relaxes.

A rectangular machine, about three feet long and two and a half feet wide, rolls past the dining room table on conveyor belt wheels. Footsteps trod through the kitchen toward the dining room. Elijah enters first, with Carson fast behind him.

"It works!" Elijah cries with excitement, following the robot. "It followed the pre-programmed path!"

"But you still have to get the precision phallus to drill better," Carson says as he follows him out into the foyer.

Daryl sits back down and slides his fingertips inside his button-down shirt to feel if he's popped a stich. They've held firm.

"Precision phallus?" Carol asks. She wiggles an eyebrow at Daryl. "I wonder where I can get one of those?"

"Stop."

[*]

As November fades into December, seventy-five pounds of butchered bear meat hangs in the smokehouse. Piles of chopped wood grow higher against the side of the inn. Rick puts the crowning touches on the ice house. Aaron and Jesus set out on one final supply run before the weather turns bad.

Carol sets traps for small game. After two days of rest and healing, Daryl begins patiently tracking a deer. Meanwhile, Dianne rides Bullseye along the dirt path through the woods until she reaches a clearing where she can dismount and send her arrows flying into the breasts of grouse.

The family is digging in for the winter.

[*]

By the ninth day of December, 40 pounds of bear meat still hangs in the smokehouse, along with 45 pounds of venison, 7 pounds of fox meat, 2 pounds of snake, 3 pounds of squirrel, and 13 pounds of grouse.

"Six ounces per person per day," Maggie mutters as she pours over the accounts. "That's 16 days. God, it looks like so much more before it's butchered."

The next day, the temperature drops below freezing for the first time. The blankets aren't cutting it anymore. The four solar powered space heaters get cracked out in the bedrooms, and Tara and Dianne move onto the couch and love seat in the second-floor living room to be near a fireplace. Ezekiel takes the library.

"You wouldn't have to sleep here, you know," Carol tells him as she heads out to check her traps the next morning and finds Ezekiel folding up blankets, "if you  _shared_  one of the bedrooms with a fireplace."

"You don't think Daryl would mind me cuddling with you two at night?"

"You  _know_  whose fireplace I'm talking about."

Ezekiel smiles. "Trust me, Carol…I'm  _working_  on it."

[*]

That night, Rosita huddles under her comforter for warmth, with the space heater burning quietly in a corner of her bedroom.

"Nothing at all," she tells Javier over the radio, even though she's got on a baggy sweatshirt and a thick pair of flannel pajama bottoms.

"Yeah?" he asks. "And what are you doing to yourself? Tell me. And be  _specific,_ hermosa _…_ "

[*]

On the eleventh day of December, just as the Council begins to discuss sending a search party, Aaron and Jesus return from their supply run. They discovered a food pantry in a rural Baptist church outside of Aldie and then decided to go on to Oceanside to try to trade some of the canned food for dried, preserved fish. "They always dry more fish than they can eat," Aaron says. "We thought they'd want to trade for some variety."

"Sounds like there's a but coming," Rick says.

Jesus warms his hands before the fireplace in the first floor living room. " _But_  the camp was completely abandoned. Everything was cleared out. There were only empty or burnt huts. And dead bodies."

"Oh God," Carol groans, and Daryl, who sits on the couch next to her, slings an arm around her shoulders.

" _Not_  of the Oceanside women and children," Aaron clarifies hastily. "But of men. I think all of Oceanside cleared out and booby trapped the place. So when those men from Norfolk came looking for their men, and tried to waltz right in…"

"Kablooie," says Jesus, opening his hand in an explosive gesture. "They had all these trip wires. Some created explosions, some must have set loose a volley of arrows. I think one cut loose a scythe that swung down, and…" Jesus draws a finger across his neck.

Rosita, who's sitting on the piano bench, asks, "How many bodies did you find?"

"Sixteen that we  _saw_ ," Aaron answers. "And we found three trucks and no retreating tracks, so I don't think any got away."

"We could only bring back one of the trucks," Jesus adds, "but we siphoned off eighteen gallons of gas from the other two, grabbed all of their tires, and took out the batteries and some other spare parts. They also had about twenty gallons of gas in cans."

"Get their guns?" Daryl asks.

"A couple," Aaron replies, "but once we figured out what had happened, we mostly surveyed the bodies from a distance. We didn't want to go walking around that place in case we set something off that hadn't been tripped yet."

"I wonder where Oceanside went?" muses Michonne, who sits in the armchair with a hand on her baby bump, which has just begun to show.

"Well they can't be coming here," Carol reasons. "We didn't tell them where we were."

"They left a note at the border. Carved into a tree," Aaron says. "CROATAN."

Jesus nods. "The lost colony."

"I don't get it," Rosita admits.

"Roanoke?" Aaron asks as though that should be enough.

"She's from Texas," Jesus reminds him. "Maybe she never learned about it."

"It's  _American_  history," Aaron insists.

Rosita sneers. "Well then school me, Mr. History."

"The first English colony was in Roanoke, Virginia," Aaron explains. "The leader went back to England, and when he returned to the colony, everyone had vanished. The only thing left was a word carved on a tree –CROATAN."

"So maybe they're saying they moved to Roanoke?" Michonne asks.

"Or maybe one of 'em was just bein' a smartass," Daryl suggests.

"I guess we'll never know," Carol says. "But I hope they're all right. All those kids…"

[*]

The next morning, Daryl loses the deer he's been tracking, and so he returns to the inn to warm up. Carol kindly rubs his hands for him one at a time between her two soft, warm ones, makes him hot tea, and then promptly recruits him to help her sort through all the stuff Jesus and Aaron brought back from the church food pantry.

The kitchen's old-fashioned wood stove is lit for warmth. "Canned white potatoes," Daryl reads after pulling a can out of one of the big cardboard boxes of loot on the counter. "Month expired."

"Starches." Carol, who is sitting at the bench-style table in the breakfast nook, makes a note in her inventory.

Daryl walks over to the pantry and puts the can on the second shelf next to a box of Rice-A-Roni before returning to the loot. "People used to donate all their worst shit," he mutters as he draws out another can. "How many damn water chestnuts can a person eat?"

"Vegetables," she says.

He puts the water chestnuts on the first shelf, next to a can of beets, returns, and pulls out a red and yellow can. "Snake soup."

Carol laughs. "What is it  _really_?"

"Snake soup," he repeats. "Three kinds of snake meat, mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, oil, 'n salt."

"Put it with the meaty soups. How many grams of protein?"

He peers at the protein line and then the number of servings. "'Bout 30."

She writes  _4 ounce of meat_  on her inventory next to the listing.

Next he pulls out a box of instant mashed potatoes. "Two years expired."

"They won't be edible, but we can use them to kill rats if we need to keep them from the root cellar."

"How so?" Daryl asks.

"They'll eat the flakes, and then when they take a drink, the flakes will expand and burst their guts."

"Damn. Yer evil."

"Put it with the cleaning supplies under the sink."

He does, and then he returns to pull another box out of the loot. "The hell?" he asks.

"What is it?"

"Meat in a box."

"Meat?" Carol asks. "In a  _box_?"

"Wanna hear the directions?"

"Please."

"Just add water," he reads, "and yer imagination."

"That's going to take a hell of a lot of imagination. Put it on the shelf of shame."

They've been lining up the most inedible and most expired stuff on the highest shelf of the pantry, for use in desperate times only. He sets it next to the can of Mushy Original Cooked Dry Peas (artificially colored), with an expiration date from the first month of the Outbreak.

They sort a few more cans. "Ground chicken necks?" he asks.

"Seriously?"

"'S what it says."

"How expired?"

"One month."

She sighs. "Then put it with the meats."

Daryl returns to the box and pulls out the next surprise. "Oh, yer gonna like this," he says. "Research and Development Sample," he reads. "Not for Sale."

"Shelf of shame."

"This is like them game booths at the carnival," Daryl says as he returns to the boxes. "Where ya get to turn over a rubber duck and might get a prize." Daryl draws another can out of the box. "Black beans. One month expired."

"That's a winner! Left side of the first shelf. How many grams of protein?"

As she makes a note of the protein, he puts it in the pantry and returns to the box. "Tomato soup. Five months expired. Soups?"

"No, put that with the vegetables," she says.

"Hamburger helper. Six months expired."

"Grains."

"Mhmmm… hot sauce." He unscrew the top, sticks out his tongue, and dribbles two drops on it. His eyes water and he shakes his head roughly. "Whoo-wee! 'Still hot."

Carol laughs. "Fourth shelf, right side, condiments and spices."

Daryl screws the top back on tightly and puts the hot sauce away before returning to draw another surprise from the box. "Anchovy paste. Three months expired."

"Put it with the meats."

Then it's "Fancy Ground Poppyseed Fillin'."

"Poppyseed?" she asks.

"Poppyseed," he echoes.

"Filling?"

" _Fancy ground_  fillin'."

Carol sighs. "How long expired?"

"A year."

"Shelf of shame."

By the time they're done, the shelf of shame takes up the entire top shelf of the pantry – double stacked. "That wasn't quite as good a run as I'd hoped," Carol admits as she stands surveying her newly organized pantry.

Daryl wraps his arms around her from behind and nuzzles her neck with his nose. He kisses her ear and murmurs, "Ain't got watch for an hour. Wanna fool 'round?"

She smiles, crosses her arms over his, and leans back into his embrace, "I really like that you've been initiating," she tells him honestly, "but unfortunately, my troublesome Aunt Flo is in town."

"Who?"

"I'm on the rag."

"'S indelicate," he says, and she snorts.

"I wouldn't mind getting under the covers with you though, Pookie, and warming up for a bit."

They do warm up, huddled under the thick quilt in their bedroom, with the fireplace gently crackling. But then Daryl  _warms up_ , until his erection is straining painfully against the zipper of his pants and jabbing her in the hip. She takes pity and frees him, and when her hand closes around him, he groans and bends his head against her neck. "M'girl," he murmurs. "Mmm…yeah. Do that."

She begins to stroke him slowly, but pauses, which makes him groan in protest. "Would you prefer my mouth to my hand?" she asks.

His response runs together like one long word: "Oh-hell-yeah-pretty-please-with-a-bright-red-cherry-on-top."

"Well," she says through her laugh, "I can't say no to  _that_." She grabs the pillow and tosses it on the floor beside their bed before sliding onto her knees.

"Oh hell yeah," Daryl growls as he stands and drops his pants to his ankles. "M'girl's such a damn good girl."

Afterwards, they crawl back into bed and fall asleep, until a pounding on the door awakens them. "Daryl!" Morgan yells. "You're supposed to replace Rick on watch!"


	41. Chapter 41

The Dead Enders come to trade for the newly acquired twenty gallons of gas, and of course they stay for dinner. At the moment, though, only a few people still linger at the dining room table.

H.G. stirs against Maggie's shoulder, and his big brown eyes open and stare straight at Daryl. Daryl's lips twitch into a half smile. The infant's eyes grow suddenly wide. Then they narrow almost suspiciously.

"Don't think he likes me," Daryl mutters.

Carol pats his shoulder. "You can't expect every baby on earth to adore you."

"These Oceanside ladies of yours," Mason says as he pushes his empty dessert plate away and draws his wine glass nearer, "if they're a fishing community, they might could of gone to  _Croatan Beach_. It's a neighborhood on the shores of the Atlantic and near two freshwater lakes. Plenty of fishing. About twenty miles east of Norfolk."

"Think they'd risk goin' by them assholes' headquarters?" Daryl asks.

"Maybe," Maggie speculates. "If they thought they'd killed them all by now, or  _most_  of them."

"Maybe they got tired of being attacked and decided to go on the offense," Rick suggests. "Maybe they went to take them out, loot their headquarters, and settle near Croatan Beach."

"Not too wise," Carol mutters.

"And yet we went on the offense with the Saviors, even before Alexandria was attacked," he observes.

"And that wasn't too wise," Maggie says. "We didn't know what we were getting into. I hope Oceanside does. I hope they have more information than we did before we brought the Saviors down on us."

"Who are the Saviors?" Mason asks.

"I take it they never made it this far west in Virginia?" Dianne replies. "Be grateful."

Rick tells him about their experience.

"A warlord with a force of that size?" Mason asks. "Why didn't y'all just pay the tithe and go on with your lives?"

"We did for a while," Dianne says. "In the Kingdom. Ezekiel kept the peace that way and he kept the payments secret from his people. Maybe that was the right decision, in retrospect."

Mason lifts his wine glass. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown." He sips.

"Is that why you don't try to lead your people?" Dianne asks. "And leave it to your overly suspicious father instead?"

Mason sets his glass down. "I'm not a leader, ma'am. I'm a diplomat. And speaking of overly suspicious individuals, it wouldn't hurt for you to let your guard down around friends and neighbors. On occasion."

"Touché," Dianne says and stands to clear her plate.

[*]

Rosita lies naked with her cheek on Javier's shoulder. She's savoring the moment, because she knows he has to head back to Dead End in less than an hour.

"So let me get this straight…" Javier gently massages the small of her back with his thumb. "There was an entire island full of women?"

"Not an  _island_. More like an inlet. Ocean _side_."

"Were they Amazons?"

" _No_. They were normal size."

"Did they walk around topless?" he asks.

"Only in your fantasies."

Javier chuckles. He rolls her beneath himself and pins her to be bed by her wrists. "I mostly fantasize about you, hermosa."

"Mostly, huh?"

"Well, sometimes it's you as the leader of an island full of topless Amazon women who are all at my service. But mostly  _you_."

Rosita does a quick twist that breaks one wrist out of his grip. and with a knee to his stomach, pushes him off. He laughs as he falls to his back. "Yeah. You'd definitely be the leader."

"If you don't watch it, you're not getting seconds this time."

He rolls on his side and kisses her cheek. "I'll behave now."

"Well…don't behave  _too_  much."

[*]

The next day, Daryl fails to catch the deer he's been tracking. Carol snares a possum in one of her traps, but it's seething with worms when she cuts it open. Her second trap has nothing, and the third has just the foot of a decaying walker. Its ankle snapped off, and it fell and crawled away about an acre. She finishes it off and checks to make sure it's not a Weatherford. Dianne has had better luck – she comes back with three crows.

"How bad does crow taste?" Carol asks Daryl as she preps spices for the birds that have been cleaned and now lay in a misshapen mass on her kitchen counter. She's heard the phrase  _eat crow_  after all and is wondering if they should just hang them to smoke for a later more desperate time and dip into the venison or bear tonight. She assumes he'll know. He seems to have eaten everything at some point in his life.

"'S fine," Daryl says. "Sort of like wild duck. Real dark meat. Bit gamey. Could wrap it in that bacon Dead End brought."

"No, we're having that for breakfast tomorrow." She makes breakfast as big a meal as dinner, while lunch is an on-your-own affair. She and Maggie make up lunch ration lists at the start of each week, and people sign out the food as they eat it. "People need energy for the day's work."

[*]

That night at dinner, Nabila and Ezekiel have an announcement to make. "We have pledged troth to one another," Ezekiel says, "and with you as our witnesses, tonight, we should like to become man and wife."

"I must have missed something," Tara says.

The couple makes a brief exchange of vows before the fireplace in the library, with the group huddled round, and then Ezekiel moves into Nabila's suite.

"I think he just wanted Nabila's fireplace," Jerry says.

"Don't worry," Henry tells him. "He'll still have time for us."

[*]

As Daryl and Carol climb in bed, he asks, "Ya get a commission?"

"What?"

"For gettin' 'em together. That happened damn quick."

"It  _wasn't_  quick," Carol tells him as she scoots down under the covers and rolls to face him, a hand propping up her head. "Ezekiel has been wooing her subtly ever since they settled at the Hilltop."

Daryl faces her the same way. "But've they even – "

"- No. Nabila's very traditional. She won't do  _that_  outside of marriage."

"Well, hell, no wonder he was in such a hurry to get married."

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, right?" she asks.

"Ya ain't a cow," he says. "And if'n ya were….think I done bought ya already."

She puts a hand on his hip. "Is that so?"

"Mean….not  _bought_  ya. Just mean, hell, ' M sold."

She laughs and leans in to kiss him.

He flops onto his back and pats his chest, a signal to lay her head on it.

She does, her cheek settling against the worn white fabric of his muscle shirt.

"How many condoms we got left?" he asks.

"Four, but I'm holding aside two for Enid."

"Hell for?"

"In case she and Elijah take things that far. She's way too young to be getting pregnant."

"But you ain't," he says.

"No, I'm too old."

"Ain't old," he insists.

"For a  _baby_."

"Still fuckin' and bleedin', ain't ya?"

"Charming, Daryl. So very charming."

"Just sayin'. Ain't too old."

She lifts her head and looks down at him. It suddenly occurs to her that they've never had this discussion. "Do you  _want_  to have a child?"

"I look like I got a biological clock?"

"Men want children, too," Carol says. "To carry on their legacy. To love and to be loved by. And you're incredible with Judith. You'd probably make a great father. It's not a strange question for me to ask. I mean…it's probably something we should  _discuss_. To make sure we're on the same page."

"What page 're ya on?"

"I asked  _you_  first," she says. "I just what your honest answer."

"A'ight…Honest?"

She nods.

"Don't seem real smart to me to  _try_  to make it happen. Most parents don't live to see their kids grow up in this world. Or they live to see 'em die."

Carol grits her teeth and swallows the sorrow at Sophia's memory.

Daryl puts a finger under her chin and tilts her face up to look in her eyes. "But, listen, Carol, if'n it happens, it happens. Ain't like I ain't gonna step up."

"I know you would."

"'N you? Whatdya want?"

She lays her head down on his chest again. "I don't think it's smart either," she answers. "Not at my age, not in this world, not in these conditions. Not with a baby and two toddlers  _already_  in the house, another baby coming, and barely enough food to feed everyone. I've got Henry to look out for. Gracie has no parents either. Neither does Enid." She sighs. "We're in house full of orphans. We're  _already_  adoptive parents, in a way."

"And 'm Judith's goddaddy," he murmurs.

"You are. She adores you."

"So that mean we's on the same page?"

"I think so. If we're agreeing that you should keep wrapping it."

"Charmin', Carol," he says. "So very charmin'."

She giggles against his chest.

He chuckles. His fingers find a bit of hair at the back of her neck. "We still got two condoms, right?"

"I'm so tired, Pookie. Maybe in the morning." She lifts her head to kiss him and then rolls over, her back to him.

"A'ight," he says as he rolls in the other direction, pressing his back to her back. "Yer loss."

[*]

On December 22, Enid finds a box of Christmas ornaments in the attic, and Daryl insists on cutting down a small pine tree and bringing it into the library, but the kids aren't the only ones who go wild decorating it.

"That's a bit much, Pookie, don't you think?" Carol asks when she looks at the final product.

"Ain't never had a Christmas tree before," he says, "that I knew wasn't gonna get knocked over by some drunk asshole."

She smiles, wraps an arm around his waist, and leans into him as she surveys the gaudy gold, silver, white, red, green, and blue ornamented mass of tree before her. "You missed a spot."


	42. Chapter 42

The foyer of the Bed and Breakfast bustles with people. It's the eve of Christmas Eve, and the three Dead Enders have come to trade for gas and cold medicines. They have mason jars full of pickled preserved vegetables from their summer and fall crops, two gallons of milk, and a dozen eggs. But they also come bearing Christmas gifts. Mason gives the little girls stuffed animals, Henry a harmonica, and Daryl six cigarettes. Carson has some robot parts to offer Elijah. Javier has fifteen blue, button-down shirts for Rosita, which makes her laugh and Jerry ask, "Why?"

"Let's just say he ruined my favorite shirt."

Mason has also brought a solar-powered portable space heater. "I hope this isn't too forward of me," he tells Dianne, "but I heard you and Tara were on the living room couches because y'all are short a space heater. Merry Christmas."

"Thank you," Dianne replies. "It'll be nice to sleep in my own bed again."

Finally, Mason sets a shoebox on the gateleg table in the foyer and opens it. "And candy canes for all."

Henry lunges for the contents, much to everyone's laughter, and once he has one in his mouth, he asks, "Why aren't these stale?"

"My sister Henrietta used to make and sell her own candy," Mason replies. "Well, she still does. She just can't make as much anymore."

They soon sit down to dinner together – to which the Dead Enders contribute five bottles of blackberry wine, two loaves of bread, and a sweet potato casserole.

When the last of the dishes are being cleared, Carol admits, "I really miss Christmas carols."

"Then you'll have them," Mason insists. He rolls the piano out from the first-floor living room and into the foyer just in front of the library while Javier fetches his guitar from the truck.

Everyone except Morgan, who takes the upper watch outside, and Jesus and Aaron, who are doing the dishes, gather in the library in the warmth of the fireplace and the ornamental glitter of the Christmas tree. Judith sits atop Daryl's shoulders where he stands behind Carol on the couch. The little girl drums on his head while Javier and Mason play "Deck the Halls."

"More!" Judith shouts when the song is over, and they move on to "Joy to the World" then "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."

Mason projects from the foyer to the library fireplace, where Dianne stands with her arm slung across the mantle. "What's your favorite carol, ma'am?"

"I'm Jewish, actually," she replies. Mason looks as though he fears he's committed a faux pas, but she continues, "But I do like Frosty the Snowman. I used to watch that cartoon with my daughter every December."

Mason begins to pound out the song on the piano and Javier soon joins in with the guitar. Judith picks it up partway through and does her best to keep up with the chorus. "Faaawsty de snowman was blive .. he … be and de hmhmhm hmhmhm laff and pay … you and meeeeee!"

They take a break from the music when Jesus rolls in a tea cart through the foyer. Its surface is completely covered with tea cups full of piping hot chocolate made from powder found in the church pantry.

"The man of the hour!" Jerry cries.

People begin to snatch up the cups. Mason rises from the piano bench, plucks up one for himself and another for Dianne, gestures her near him, and hands it to her.

"I had no idea you played piano," she says.

"I am a man of many surprises."

Dianne sips, looks up where they stand in the frame between the library and the foyer, and sees the plastic mistletoe hanging from the silver plant hook. "Did you put that there?" she asks.

"Ma'am, I assure you I have neither the height nor the means of achieving the height that would be required to hang that mistletoe."

" _I_  did it," Jerry admits. "Yesterday. I was just trying to get  _anyone_  to kiss me. But I couldn't get anyone to stop there."

"Well why didn't you say so?" Tara asks and plants one right on his lips, which sends Jerry stumbling back against the Christmas tree. It shakes and drops a dozen ornaments. He laughs, and so does everyone else, except Daryl, who mutters something about his tree being messed up. Carol gives him a sympathetic smile.

"You see, I am entirely innocent in this matter," Mason tells Dianne. "But, since we're here…." He looks up.

Dianne shakes her head, but she kisses him on the cheek. Then she raises her cup. "I'll take this to go. Poor Morgan. He never gets to join in any of the reindeer games. I'm going to go relieve him on watch."

[*]

Daryl sucks in on one of Mason's hand-rolled cigarettes, lets the buzz tickle his brain, and blows out the smoke.

Mason, with one hand shoved deep in the pocket of a worn, dark green Border Patrol coat, keeps glancing down the length of the porch to the rear stand where Dianne is now standing watch.

Daryl shakes his head. "Why're ya still chasin' 'er? Don't stand a snowball's chance in a Georgia July."

"Well maybe that's  _why_  I'm doing it," Mason replies.

"Huh?"

"Daryl, you're still too young to appreciate this – "

" – Damn, man, I ain't that much younger 'n you."

"- But the  _thrill_  is in the  _chase_."

"Is it?"

"At this point," Mason admits, "I'm not sure I'd know what to do with her if I caught her."

Daryl chuckles. "Kind of how I felt the first couple months after Carol – " He stops suddenly.

"After Carol, what?"

"Uh…acted in'rested." Daryl shrugs. "But I figured out what to do with her."

"I believe you did. But that's not what I mean. I had a long marriage. It was decent when you average all the years together, but like any long marriage, it had its ups and downs. And some of those downs were steep. I'm not sure I'm ready to ride that roller coaster again. And I  _know_  Dianne's not. So this… _courtship…_ if you will, this pleasant road to nowhere in particular…It's a chance for both of us to dip our toes in the water without getting wet."

"Sure she wants to dip 'er toe?" Daryl asks.

"I think if she didn't, she'd have told me point blank to fuck off by now. Because that woman does not mince words."

Daryl's laugh makes smoke puff out all around the cigarette.

[*]

Javier slides on his boxers and sits back down on the edge of the bed to pull on his shirt. "Do you really have to go back tonight?" Rosita asks as she half sits up under the blankets.

"Ten p.m. curfew. Besides, you don't have a lock checker here."

"We  _do_  have a lock checker now. I think it's Rick tonight."

"Mason and Carson would have to stay. We can't make two trips two days in a row. Gas."

"Mason could stay in the library," she suggests. "There's a fireplace there. And Carson could have a sleepover with Elijah in the third floor living room."

Javier pulls on his jeans. "You  _really_  want me to stay the night, don't you?"

She shrugs. "I don't care."

"No?"

"Okay, fine," she admits. "I  _do_  care. I'd like you to stay."

Javier sits down on the bed and grins. "I'll go talk to Mason." He pulls on his socks and boots. "He'll come up with some excuse to tell Amos." He stands, takes his long-sleeve shirt from off the back of the vanity chair, and slides into it before heading for the door.

"Hey," she asks when his hand is on the door knob. "There's no one else, right? Back at Dead End?"

Javier turns. "No. Of course not. Why would you think that?"

"Well…. I didn't necessarily just  _assume_  this was exclusive. Just because you said – " She stops. He didn't actually  _say_  he  _loved_  her. He said he was going to  _make_  love to her. And it  _felt_  like he did.

"Because I said what?"

"I didn't just assume," she repeats.

Javier looks irritated. "Well I did. Is there someone else  _here_? For you?"

Rosita lets out a sharp laugh. "Who?"

"I don't know. Morgan. Jerry. Daryl. Ezekiel."

"Morgan still has a screw rattling a  _little_  bit loose. Jerry is mentally twelve. If I ever so much as tried anything with Daryl, Carol would have six knives in my skull before I could say Jack Robinson. And Ezekiel is married to Nabila now."

"So no one, then?"

"Why didn't you mention Rick?"

"He's not your type."

She laughs. "But  _Jerry_  is?"

"So no one?" he repeats.

"No one," she assures him. "Just you."

He smiles. "Good. Because I got bad marks in sharing in Kindergarten."

[*]

Daryl gets the last puff he can out of the cigarette before stubbing it out. "You uh…bring what I asked for?"

Mason sighs and unsnaps his dark green coat. "You are a busy man," he says as he reaches inside and pulls out a box of condoms. "And do you have what  _I_  asked for?"

Daryl unzips his long-sleeve leather jacket and pulls out the flask of whiskey Jesus and Aaron brought back a while ago. He smuggled it out of the pantry this afternoon.

The exchange is made hastily beneath the awning of the porch, like a back alley drug deal, and they close their coats tightly when the front door opens.

"Hey, old man," Javier says. "We're spending the night. Tell Amos something."

"Were we  _invited_  to spend the night?" Mason asks.

" _I_  was. And you're the baggage that comes with me, so…" Javier glances toward the stand. "And who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky tonight for a change." He pats Mason on the shoulder and then disappears inside.

[*]

Judith's eyelids fall closed and her hand slips off Daryl's shoulder. He's sitting on the floor with his back to her toddler bed as he reads because the bed is too small for him to share. She's got her own little room of sorts now, in the alcove that used to house a writing desk, behind a curtain Michonne hung to give her and Rick some privacy in the Viognier Suite.

"And what happened then?" Daryl whispers. "Well...in Whoville they say, that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."

Judith murmurs and curls up.

Daryl closes the book, stands, and tucks her in. He bends to kiss her forehead.

[*]

Because Dianne is surveying the fields and bordering woods through binoculars, she doesn't notice the approach from below, until she hears Mason's, "Ma'am?"

She startles, breathes again, and looks down at him at the foot of the ladder. "What?"

"Might I come up and offer you some hand warmers?"

She nods. He scales the ladder, fishes into his pocket, and hands her two packets. "I used to use these all the time when I worked nights in the Border Patrol in winter."

"Thank you." Both hand warmers now inserted under her gloves, Dianne scans the horizon, lowers her binoculars, and asks, "Where did Carson get all that red hair?"

"You can really see the world from up here, can't you?" he asks. "Perfect view of everything."

"Yes." Dianne drops her curiosity about how different Carson looks from his father. She thinks she can guess. "Would you do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Stop calling me  _ma'am_. It makes me feel so old."

"Yes, ma'am." He winces. "I mean, Dianne."

[*]

As Daryl eases out from behind the curtain, Michonne is pulling some blankets and a pillow out of a wardrobe. "Can you put these in the library for Mason?"

"Mhmh."

When he goes to drop them off, Carol quickly steps away from the mantle. She looks around as if she wasn't just messing with the stockings.

His eyes twinkle. "Puttin' somethin' in my stockin'?"

The Christmas boxes Enid found had six stockings. Carol pulled out the stitching for the names and added her own – H.G., Gracie, Judith, Henry, Enid…and Daryl.

"Maybe."

He sets the blankets and pillow down on the couch and starts to walk toward the mantle, but she puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Not until Christmas morning."

"But that's over a day!"

"This is how it works, Daryl."

He grunts.

"Did you get a Christmas present from Mason?" she asks.

"The cigarettes?"

"I mean…a  _box_  of something."

"Ah, yeah," he mutters with a slight flush.

"Should we go upstairs and try one out?"

He ducks his head and grins, and when her hand slides into his, he tugs her toward the stairs.


	43. Chapter 43

In the third floor living room, Carson and Elijah sit tinkering with Elijah's robot on the coffee table. Enid rocks in the chair by the fireplace and flips the page of a graphic novel she found on the bookcase in the corner. "Can I help with anything?" she asks.

"Not really," Elijah says as he screws in a bolt. "Got it!"

"Now let's turn it over," Carson tells him.

Enid sighs, stands, and drops the book on the rocking chair. "Well, I'm going to bed."

"Goodnight," Elijah says without looking up from his work. Carson elbows him in the ribs. Elijah looks at him, and Carson nods to Enid. "Oh, uh, I'll walk you." Elijah stands.

"It's not like I have to pass any dangerous alleys," Enid tells him. "Just half a hallway."

"Still…"

Enid lets him walk her to her bedroom door and says, "Well, this is me. Are you going to kiss me goodnight now? I mean, you didn't even buy me dinner."

"I let you have my dessert."

"Because you left to go play with your friend."

"He's not here that often, Enid."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm being stupid." She stands on her tiptoes and gives him a little kiss on the lips. Elijah responds shyly, but with more pressure. Enid wraps her arms around his neck and French kisses him, to which he responds eagerly. They make out for a minute until they hear Carol and Daryl's footsteps treading up the stairs, and then Enid breaks away and quickly disappears inside her room.

Elijah flushes and nods to the older couple as he heads back to the third floor living room, where he settles on the floor again to tinker.

Carson says, "Enid's pretty."

Elijah shoots him a wary look. "She's my girlfriend."

"I figured that out," Carson replies. "I'm just saying you're lucky. Martina jilted me for Santiago, and now I'm pretty sure I'll die a virgin."

"Plenty of fish in the sea," Elijah says.

"What sea?" Carson asks. "There are seven single girls and women at Dead End. Three are my first cousins, two are under thirteen, one's my Aunt Dolly, and one is over seventy."

"Oh."

"How old is Tara?"

"At least twelve years older than you," Elijah answers.

"I could go twelve years older," Carson says.

"And I think she's a lesbian."

"I could go for a lesbian."

Elijah laughs.

"Think about it," Carson says. "This is the world we live in. You have Enid and that's your only option. And you're  _her_  only option. Martina's lucky. She at least had three single guys her age to choose from. Of course she went for the one with no brain and two ears."

Elijah's face falls. "You think that's the only reason Enid likes me?"

"You're a cool guy, man. And you're a lot better looking than I am. I'm just saying, most girls …" Carson shakes his head. "They wouldn't have anything to do with geeks like us in the old world."

"Ain't in the old world." Both young men jump as Daryl's frame appears in the open arch. "Carol asked me to see if ya got blankets 'n pillows."

"Yeah," Carson mutters. "I got…I'm good."

"Mhmhm." Daryl turns away and walks on.

Carson looks at Elijah. "He's kind of scary."

[*]

Rosita's  _fuck yes!_  drifts up through the third-floor vent on the floor of the Chardonnay Suite. Carol closes the vent and drags the vanity on top of it.

Daryl removes the last thing from his belt – a hunting knife – and sets it on the cluttered nightstand. Then he unbuckles his belt and slides it out with a snap.

"That sound's kind of a turn on," Carol says. There was a time when it wasn't - when Ed was the one snapping out the belt.

"Yeah?" he asks with a bit of a lecherous grin. "C'mere."

She does, walking slowly over to him and hooking a finger in the waistband of his pants to draw him in for a kiss. He cups her cheek and deepens the kiss, until she pulls away breathing hard. His eyes flit up and down her body. "Need to get m'girl out them clothes."

After they make love, Carol snuggles in against his side with her head on his shoulder. Daryl pulls the quilt up to her neck.

"Did you get me a Christmas present?" she asks. She's only teasing him because he's cute when he's alarmed about some relationship-related expectation. She doesn't actually  _expect_  a Christmas gift from him.

So she's surprised when he says, "Yep."

"Really?" She hasn't gotten him anything, other than the box of three cigars she found in the drawer of an end table in the first-floor living room that she snuck into his stocking this evening. "Something you found in the attic?"

"Nah. Been makin' it."

_Making_  it?"

"Ya get me somethin'?" he asks.

"Uh…"

He bends his head to nuzzle her cheek with his nose and whispers, "Just want somethin' to unwrap."

"I don't think we have any wrapping paper."

"'Mean…that skimpy black one, with all them little ties down the front. And on the sides of the panties."

"Oh. The lingerie. You want to unwrap  _me_."

"Mhmhm," he murmurs sleepily.

"Now  _that_ , I think I can arrange."

Their door knob rattles slightly. Daryl startles as he's drifting off.

"Lock checker," Carol reminds him.

"Mhmhm…." His neck droops again until his chin is settled on her head, and then he's out.

[*]

Dianne always awakes before sunrise. It's a habit she can't get out of after working six years on the 6 AM to 2 PM shift as a security guard. She did it because she was a newly single mom, and her sister, who lived with her, taught evening classes at the local community college from 4 PM to 11 PM. That way someone was always home to watch Emily, and Dianne got to spend dinner with her daughter.

She's sitting at the country-style kitchen table now, on four hours of sleep, with the wood stove burning, the copper kettle removed from it, coffee in her cup, and four more cups sitting in the French press.

"Are you reading a  _newspaper_?" Mason asks.

She looks up to see him entering the kitchen, in the jeans and button-down shirt he wore yesterday, a bit more wrinkled than before, no boots or hat, and his thick, still mostly blonde hair askew.

"It's from a few days before it all started," she says. "Before it was all really obvious, anyway. It's interesting, what people were worried about back then."

Mason gets a cup of coffee from the French press and sits down on the bench seat across from her. "And what  _were_  people worried about?"

"The mid-term elections. The stock market. And…" she flips the page. "According to Dear Cassie, whether or not to forgive a cheating spouse."

"Well, now, I reckon that's something people  _still_  worry about these days."

"Unfortunately so, I imagine." Dianne lays the paper down on the table. "Carson's not biologically yours, is he?"

"No." He drums his fingertips on the table.

"He doesn't know?" she asks.

"You mean does he know what you've guessed? That his mother cheated on me? No, he does not. And I would like to keep it that way."

"But you stayed married to her?" Dianne asks.

"Yes."

"How did you forgive her?"

"I didn't all at one time. But little by little. Through the years. Because she really did seem sorry for wounding me. And we had our little girl. Charlotte. And then we had Carson…he wasn't mine. But it wasn't  _his_  fault he wasn't mine."

"Did she change?" Dianne asks.

He nods. "We  _both_  did. I was married to my job those first few years. I wasn't exactly the ideal husband when she wandered. I didn't cheat, but I didn't exactly cherish either. I basically left her to raise our daughter alone and expected her to be there when I wanted her. I changed.  _We_  changed."

"I couldn't forgive my husband. We…" Dianne shakes her head. She doesn't like to recall those days. It's strange, that they can still hurt, almost as much as the loss of the Kingdom. "It crumbled."

"Understandable."

"And then the world ended, I wondered…" She sighs. "Maybe if I had  _tried_  to make it work, and he was around, he would have saved our little girl from getting bitten."

"Don't play the what if game, Dianne. There's no winner. There's no peace in it."

"I wish I knew what  _did_  have peace in it."

"This inn," Mason tells her. "This family of yours."

"For now."

"There's  _only_  here," he says. "There's  _only_  now."

Dianne nods. She grits her teeth and brings the coffee to her lips. When she puts the cup down, she clears her throat, swipes at the eyes, and flips through the paper to the crossword puzzle. "What's an eight-letter word for optimistic? Ends in an e?"

"Sanguine," Masons says.

"I don't have a pen anyway."

He pulls one out of his front shirt pocket and hands it to her with a click of the ballpoint top. "Well, now you do. Be sanguine."

[*]

Rosita awakes to the feel of Javier's lips on her neck and his erection pressed against her hip. "My God," she says. "Do you ever get enough?"

"Of you, hermosa? Never."

She rolls over to face him. "We did it twice last night and once this morning already."

"But we have to store up nuts for the winter."

She laughs and props her head up on her hand. "Are we squirrels now?"

"No, but…we won't be able to see each other as often."

"We won't?"

"We  _do_  have a plow, but it's small. We aren't going to plow eight miles of hilly, windy road with it."

"But…how often does it snow?"

"On and off. Most days it will be nothing. Or a light dusting. But at least once, it will probably drop a foot or two of snow, and then no one is going anywhere until it melts down. When it  _does_  melt enough, we'll have two or three days to travel before the temperature drops again, and then it will be like a solid sheet of ice."

She frowns.

Javier smirks. "You're going to miss me, aren't you?"

Rosita shrugs.

"We'll talk every day on the radio."

"It's fine," she says, picking at the sheet between two fingers. "I don't really care."

"Yes, you do, Rosita," he says. "Why are you so afraid to let yourself love me, hermosa? What's the worse that's going to happen if you do? I break your heart?"

"Yes," she says and rolls away, her back to him.

He slides close and wraps an arm around her. "And I thought you were such a badass. The things you've risked and survived? And you can't risk your heart?"

"It's the only thing I've got left that can't be taken from me," she says.

"No, it can't be taken from you. It can only be given." He kisses her ear and whispers, "Won't you give it to me?"

She traces the sinews of his lower arm with a fingertip as her heart beats faster in her chest. "A loan, maybe," she says. "Until the spring."

[*]

The Dead Enders leave at nine in the morning for their Christmas Eve celebration back home. The Christmas Eve feast at Hillcrest is satisfying, but somewhat austere. They're all thinking about the winter to come.

At the Council meeting that night, Maggie cracks out the books. "After what we've eaten and what we've added this week, here's what we have left for meat: 1 dozen eggs, 6 pounds of bear meat, 75 pounds of venison, 1 pound of squirrel, 1 pound of snake, 2 pounds of fox, 8 pounds of grouse. At five ounces per person per day, that's 17 days."

"And at four ounces per person per day?" Rick asks.

"21 days. And now we have 14 days of canned meat at four ounces a day."

"That will get us through January, but what about February?" Ezekiel asks. "The fish have descended to the bottom of the stream. Most of the birds have headed south. The bears have gone into hibernation."

"Still got goruse 'round," Daryl says. "Crow. Deer. Fox. Red squirrel. Keep huntin' and trappin. Ain't gonna get much. Tress 're so bare they can see us comin' a mile away. But we'll get somethin'."

"How long will the beans last?" Rick asks.

"Ten days at a cup each per day," Maggie answers. "And we have peanuts and peanut butter for protein, too. From Dead End. That will probably last us six days if we're trying to get a full serving of protein per person per day."

"So that gets us through half of February," Rick reasons.

"And for fruits and vegetables?" Ezekiel asks.

"With the church pantry find and everything Dead End gave us," Maggie says, "we're fine for two servings a day per person through March. We'll have more if the green house yields any perpetual spinach."

"Grains?" Rick asks.

"We have grits and oatmeal and rice," Carol says. "Pasta and cereal, too."

"Two servings per person per day through March," Maggie clarifies.

"And dairy?" Rick wants to know.

"Nabila's still nursing Gracie twice a day," Carol says. "So she's set."

"And H.G. has me," Maggie adds. "The fresh milk Dead End brought us will last about seven days before it spoils. I say we give most of it to Judith and Henry. After that, we have some powdered milk that should give us six cups a week through March. I figure two each per week for Judith and Henry and two for cooking."

Rick shakes his head. "It's tight."

"Been through much worse," Daryl says.

"We'll be hungry," Carol agrees, "but we won't starve. Though I think Michonne, Maggie, and Nabila need extra rations, since they're either pregnant or nursing."

They haggle about that for a while and settle on a compromise where the women get one extra ration a day that comes from a different person each day. Then Ezekiel says, "We must speak of Oceanside, and whether we should seek to find them."

Daryl's "Hell would we?" mingles with Rick's, "No."

"They had children," Carol reasons.

"Ain't  _our_  children," Daryl insists. "Didn't have no interest in comin' with us. Chose their lot."

"We don't need to go poking around those Norfolk headquarters," Rick agrees, "in case there are a lot more of them. I wish Oceanside the best, I truly do, but they are  _not_  our people."

"They came to our aid in the War," Carol says. "They didn't have to, but, in the end, they did."

"And we paid them handsomely afterward," Maggie says. "I'm with Rick and Daryl. Oceanside is not our problem. Protecting our  _own_ , that's our problem."

"So we're nothing but insular tribes now?" Carol asks. "All of us? We're no better than Amos?"

"Maybe Amos is right," Rick says. "Look at Dead End. How long it's stood. How prosperous it is."

Daryl rubs his eyes. "Can't do nothin' in the winter no how. Ain't goin' nowhere with snow and ice comin' in any day now. 'S talk 'bout it in the spring." He looks at Carol cautiously, "A'ight?"

She nods.


	44. Chapter 44

On Christmas morning, a faint dusting of snow collects on the watch stand and porch railings, on the roofs of the inn and barn and smokehouse, on the hoods of trucks and the dirt road. Jerry bellows, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" as they all spill outside on the porch to look at the winter wonderland.

Henry helps Judith try to make a snow man, but they only manage an eleven-inch, lopsided blob-like creation with nature's sparse offering.

Rick and Daryl get caught up in a snowball fight that involves far more mud than snow and then go inside to get cleaned up. The rest of the family is not far behind, and eventually they all gather in the library, where the kids check their stockings.

There's a new pacifier for H.G., courtesy of Jesus, still in its original packaging. Gracie gets a bunch of teething rings – and none too soon, as her lower lateral incisors are about to come in. Judith has three colorful bouncy balls Daryl found in the drawers of the kitchen desk, and she goes wild throwing them against the tile floor of the foyer and watching them bounce almost high enough to hit the chandelier. Henry has a candy cane – the one that was meant for Carol. Enid has the one that was meant for Elijah, as well as two rolled up comic books.

"I had them in my bus," Elijah says.

Enid gives him a sudden kiss on the cheek that causes him to flush.

Daryl plucks out his cigars and grins.

"I know it's not cigarettes," Carol says.

"Love 'em," he tells her.

"Why does Daryl get a stocking?" Jerry asks. "And not any of the rest of us?"

"There were only six," Carol says. "You could have knitted your own."

"Maybe I will," Jerry replies.

[*]

Carol uses eight of the eggs from Dead End, a can of white potatoes, lots of vegetables, and three ounces of venison to make a hearty Christmas breakfast scramble for the family.

Daryl doesn't go hunting just yet. He makes Carol wait in their bedroom for her Christmas present.

"Eyes closed?" he asks through an open crack in the doorway.

"Eyes closed," she promises.

She hears the door creak open and then click shut and then here's a flop followed by Daryl's gruff, "M'rry Christmas."

She opens her eyes to find a bearskin rug on the floor before their fireplace.

"Been tannin' it for weeks," he says.

"It's beautiful!" She's glad he hasn't left the head on. Carol walks over to the rug, squats down, and runs her hand over the dark hair before standing. "Thank you."

He smiles. "Gonna make love to my unofficial wife on it."

"Damn right you are," she tells him. "Let me just slip into the bathroom and wrap up your present."

[*]

The flames of the fire warm Carol's bare arm as she lies on her back and listens to the husky sound of Daryl's breath. He takes his sweet time pulling the ties across her breasts loose …one by one by one…his eyes fixed on every spot of flesh the unraveling reveals.

"Goddamn beautiful," he murmurs as he pushes the black shirt open slowly. The silky material hardens her nipples as it slides over them, and the intensity of his eyes brings a blush to her bare skin that warms her more than the fire. Daryl licks his lips, but he doesn't touch her yet. Instead, he wraps the tie on the left side of her black panties deliberately around his finger – three times – before he yanks it loose.

"Like unwrappin' ya," he says, and feathers his fingertips across her bare navel to her other hip. He pulls that tie loose slowly. Then he slides off her panties and tosses them aside before finally dipping his head to kiss her.

He's clearly hungry by the time their lips meet, and he ravishes her mouth while he cups and kneads one breast, his calloused thumb circling her hardened nipple. When Carol arches into him, he groans, abandons her breast, and fumbles for the button on his pants. It springs free with a pop, and he jerks his zipper down with a rasp. He nips at her neck, growling, "Want my present now."

Carol quickly helps him shimmy out of his pants and into a condom.

[*]

They fall asleep before the fireplace and don't awake until two in the afternoon. Alarmed by how long they've napped, they scurry to dress. Daryl vanishes to hunt.

Carol hikes through the crunchy grass of the far field, over the light dusting of snow, and into the forest to check her traps. She's snagged only a single squirrel, and she brings it home for Jerry to skin and clean for the smokehouse.

There's little time to cook, so she whips up a simple super for everyone - peanut butter and jam parfaits in sundae glasses. She puts a thick layer of Dead End's strawberry jam on the bottom of each glass, then a thin layer of their homemade peanut butter on top of that, followed by another thick layer of jam, and another thin layer of peanut butter. She tops them all off with rainbow sprinkles from the ice cream shop in Clifton.

Daryl returns just in time to join them in the dining room, muttering about the deer that eluded him.

Judith and Henry get their parfaits with a glass of fresh milk, while everyone else settles for water. It's Judith's first time having nuts, so Rick stands by with an entire bottle of children's Benadryl and watches carefully for any hint of reaction. She's fine.

"Best dinner EVER!" Henry rules.

"Bwest!" Judith seconds.

[*]

In the second floor billiard room, Henry sits on the bar watching Daryl and Jesus play pool. Jerry leans back against the bar next to him and crosses his arms over his chest. "My money's on Jesus."

"I'm betting on Daryl," Henry insists.

"$20?" Jerry asks.

"Sure."

The balls crack and Daryl curses.

Jesus smirks and lines up his shot.

At the checker table, Michonne tells Rick, "I'm going to jump you twice."

"Like you did last night?" he whispers with a smile. "Gotta love second trimester hormones."

"What are hormones?" Henry asks.

"You know," says Carol from the couch where she sits reading a book, "I think it's time to start school again, Henry." At the Hilltop, they used to hold classes at the one-room schoolhouse that was original with the historic property. The classes were staggered, but the 10, 11, and 12 year olds were all together in one, three hours a day, four days a week.

"What? Why?"

"Just an hour or two a day," she tells him. "Math, reading…biology."

Henry sighs. "What if I say no?"

"Then you'll grow up ignorant," she replies.

The balls on the pool table crack.

Henry sighs.

[*]

Meanwhile, above them, in the third floor living room, Enid slides away from Elijah on the couch where they've been making out. The fire hisses and pops. "What's wrong?" she asks him, because he hasn't been as responsive as she expected.

Elijah slides back against the arm of the couch and picks at a hole in the fabric. "Are you just with me because there's no one else in the world anywhere near your age?"

"I'm not obligated to be with anyone, you know."

"So…I'm better than nothing?"

"No! I mean yes." She shakes her head. "No. I mean…Elijah…I really like you."

"You do?"

"Of course. You're sweet and smart and nice…and cute."

He smiles.

"Do you like me?" she asks. "I mean…would you even want to be with me in the old world?"

"I wouldn't have a chance with you in the old world."

She laughs. "Why not?"

"You're pretty. And confident. Bold. And – "

"- Yeah, well, I wasn't bold in the old world. I was totally shy."

"You?" he asks.

She smiles and nods. "Once, I wanted to ask this guy to the dance in 8th grade…so I hung out by his locker. But when he got there, I chickened out and pretended to be opening the locker next to him, and he was like – why are you trying to bust into Karen's locker?"

Elijah chuckles.

Enid slides closer. "In the old world, I'd be the envy of all my high school girlfriends. Dating the hot college guy who could buy me beer."

"Well, I'm only twenty. I couldn't have gotten you beer."

She rolls her eyes. "I don't even like beer. That's not my point."

He inches a little closer, puts a hand on her hip, and kisses her.

Five minutes later, while they're still kissing, he ventures to slide a hand up her shirt. He's just gently squeezed her breast through her bra when footsteps sound on the stairs. They both fly to opposite ends of the couch. Elijah grabs a throw pillow and sets it on his lap as he catches his breath.

They can't see her from here, but Carol's voice drifts down the hallway - "Night, Elijah. Night, Enid. Merry Christmas." Then her footsteps, followed by Daryl's heavier ones, disappear toward their bedroom.

Enid straightens her shirt. "I think we better slow down."

"Okay," he says, though his face cries confusion.

"I should go to bed," Enid tells him.

"Okay. I'm sorry."

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about." She stands, walks over, and kisses him. "I had a lot of fun. I just think…we should probably stop there."

"Okay."

She kisses him again. He doesn't offer to walk her to her room tonight. He's got that pillow pushed down on his lap and is looking very embarrassed and uncomfortable. "Good night," she says with a smile.

"Nite, Enid."

When she heads to her room, Carol's lingering in the open doorway of her own. Enid tries to shuffle past her without talking, but Carol doesn't allow. "Remember what I told you," Carol says. "If you ever need con – "

"- Shh!" Enid hisses, looking with a flush back down the hall.

"I just want you to be safe and responsible."

"I will be. God." Mortified, Enid hurries on and disappears into her room.

[*]

When Carol clicks their door shut, Daryl asks, "Yer mama push condoms on ya like that?"

"No. I wish she'd lived to, though."

Daryl slowly removes the holster from his belt, checks the safety on the handgun, and sets it on the dresser. "She died when you was a kid?"

Carol nods. "Another reason my dad was overprotective, probably. She died in a car crash, going to play bridge with the girls. Drunk driver in a pick-up. I was twelve. He wouldn't let me get my license after that. I had to wait until I moved out."

"My mom died when I's nine."

"I know. In the fire."

He nods. He remembers telling Carl Grimes that, when the poor kid lost his own mama. He doesn't remember telling her. But he probably did. He's told her more than he ever imagined telling anyone.

He plops down on the bed and pulls off his boots. She takes a kerosene lamp into the bathroom and the water comes on. Daryl strips down to his muscle shirt and boxers. Despite the dusting of snow – or maybe because of it – it's not terribly cold tonight. He lies on his back, his hands behind his head, studying the ceiling until she returns, puts out the lamp, crawls under the covers, and lays her head on his chest. "I really like my Christmas present," she says.

"Liked mine, too." He drops an arm across her back. "Best damn Christmas I ever had in my life." A weird feeling weaves around his heart when he speaks that truth, mingled happiness and sadness.

She kisses his chest through his t-shirt and snuggles in. "You'll have even better ones," she promises.


	45. Chapter 45

After four days of luckless hunting and trapping, Carol finally snares a fox, Daryl brings down a small doe, and Dianne shoots two grouse. It's a good, thing, too, because the next day, the weather changes suddenly and dramatically.

No one feels the great storm coming, not even the Dead Enders. The afternoon of New Year's Eve, Javier contacts Rosita on the radio and promises her to come that evening for a trading trip. "I'm going to smuggle a bottle of champagne from the Weatherford's personal cellar. We'll ring in the New Year in style. But I want a  _very_  good kiss."

Rosita promises he won't regret the trip. But just ten minutes later it begins to snow. Not gently. In great sweeping streams. Then the wind picks up. It howls as the snow flurries batter the stand where Rosita struggles to make out the scene. For the next few minutes, she can see nothing but snow, and she abandons her post.

Rosita fights the rough wind to make her way back up onto the porch, just as Morgan, leaving his post on lower watch, pulls up the hill in a pick-up, slipping and skidding and struggling to cling to the snow-slickened dirt road. He parks and makes his way to the porch, his hand shielding his eyes. Morgan bumps into the bottom of the porch blindly before he finds his way to the stairs.

They clamor inside and shut the door against the wailing wind. "Can't see a thing out there," Morgan says.

"I know." Rosita's radio hisses. It's Javier. "We can't risk the roads in this," he tells her. "I'm sorry, hermosa. We'll see what the morning brings."

[*]

The morning brings almost two feet of snow to the Virginia foothills. It rises until its nearly level with the edge of the porch.

They dig out walking paths to the rear watch stand, barn, and smokehouse. They also knock the snow off the roofs of these smaller structures for fear the weight will cause them to collapse.

They decide not to bother digging out the trucks. "Aint no one goin' nowhere in this," Daryl says. They also forget about the lower watch for now, since the rear watch stand affords a clear view of everything, and it would be too much work getting up and down that hill.

Javier radios Rosita. "I take it the trade trip is cancelled?" she asks.

"Sorry, hermosa. It's all we can do to plow our way to the barns and between the main house, the guest house, and the servants' quarters. We have to dig out the gristmill and the solar bay, too. I probably won't make it up there until most of this snow melts."

"And how long will that take?" she asks.

"I can't say. Two weeks?" he guesses.

[*]

Despite the two-feet of snow around the inn, the covered porch has only received a seven-inch coating, and Henry and Judith largely clear it in the process of building what Ezekiel calls "a proper snowman."

Carol supplies them with a bowler she found on a hat rack in the inn, and Daryl offers them a pipe he got from the library. They use marbles for the eyes. Gracie watches the construction from Aaron's arms and tries to lean out of them to grab the pipe. When she's denied, she begins to wail, and Aaron takes her inside.

The snowman complete, Enid and Elijah emerge from the great house. Elijah gives Henry the thumbs up. "Great job, kid. You did – " A snowball smacks him in the shoulder, and his eyes widen. He turns to find Enid forming a second one, and he scrambles to gather his own munitions.

They manage a slippery snowball fight all along the wrap-around porch, barely avoid knocking over the snowman, and quit when they're both coated with white dust from head to toe. Laughing, they kick the snow off their boots against the side of the inn and go inside.

When no one is looking, Judith jumps off the stairs, away from the dug-out path and toward the snow drift, and sinks down into the depths of the snow. She throws up her arms and cries, "Unca D! Hep!"

Daryl, chuckling, recovers her, but she's a missing a boot, not surprising given that the pair Jesus brought her from his last supply run is still one size too large. Daryl takes the little girl inside to her father and returns to dig out the boot.

By then, Henry has ventured into the snow beyond the porch, and he pelts Daryl with a sloppy snowball.

"Good arm," Daryl tells him, and sends one flying back. It's hard for the boy to run from the volleys when he sinks almost up to his knee with every step in the snow, though, so Daryl goes easy on him.

The snow's too deep for sledding, though Henry manages a snow angel of sorts. Eventually, however, he tires of the novelty and goes inside to warm up with Judith before the library fire, where she's signing to herself, "Fawsty de snowman…hmmm….merwee, merwee so…hmm hmmm…cor pob pie and bwuton no and .. hmm … hmmm ….hmmm. . . you and meee!"

[*]

Dianne walks daily on the dug-out path to the barn to check on Bullseye. She's glad Mason left them enough winter hay to supply the animal, but she finds herself wishing the snow hadn't kept the men from their trading trip. She even thinks of borrowing the radio from Rosita to call Mason, perhaps over some question about the horse.

Daryl makes daily trips to the smokehouse to retrieve meat. Jerry ventures out to bring in the already chopped wood. Watchmen rotate in and out of the upper stand. The kids – including Enid and Elijah - go out for about an hour a day to play in the snow. But otherwise, the family mostly stays confined to the inn.

In the mornings, they hang out in the library or billiard room, read, play games, and talk. Throughout the afternoon, the four adult couples vanish to their private bedrooms for long "naps." In the evenings, they dine together on meager rations, while the old-fashioned wood stove warms the kitchen and dining room.

[*]

Enid wonders if their kissing and breathing is as loud as it sounds to her, if it's drifting from the third floor living room and down the hall. But then she forgets about how loud it sounds because Elijah's hands are under her shirt again and it feels so crazy good the way he's touching her. Lying half on top of him on the couch, she grinds herself against the bulge in his jeans, and he groans.

But then she's sure she hears footsteps in the hallway and rolls off of him onto the floor. She scurries on all fours to the armchair and then stands and sits in it.

Elijah sits up, breathing hard, and runs his hand through his thick, dark curls. "What?" he asks.

"I thought I heard somebody coming." She looks out the open doorframe to the hallway but sees nothing.

"We should go in the blood bus," Elijah suggests.

"We'd have to dig a path to the door. And then dig out the stairs. It would be kind of obvious what we were up to."

"Your room?"

She shakes her head. She doesn't trust herself if they start making out behind a closed door on her bed. If they stay here, she knows they'll only go so far.

There's a creak on the stairs. Elijah hears it, too. He grabs the throw pillow and sets it on his lap to hide the obvious erection straining against the zipper of his jeans.

Enid nods to Carol who's now at the top of the stairs. "Hey!" she says.

"Hey," Carol replies. She rests a hand on the post of the stairwell. "You know," she says, "I've been thinking. We should really put a curtain up over that entryway. For some privacy for Elijah. Make it more like a bedroom."

"Good idea!" Elijah agrees, though he can't see her from his position on the couch.

Carol smiles. "I'll do that this evening." She walks on to her bedroom.

When she's gone, Elijah asks, "Do you want to come back over here?"

"I think maybe we should take a break from making out," Enid tells him. "Do you want to play Scrabble?"

Elijah's face says that playing Scrabble is the last thing on earth he wants to be doing right now. But his mouth says, "Sure. You better get it. I uh...need…a minute."

[*]

"How did we become the babysitters?" Tara asks Rosita as they both sit on the couch in the first-floor living room.

"I don't even like kids," Rosita admits in a whisper.

Some people are upstairs playing in the billiard room, but everyone else seems to have vanished to their bedrooms. A few minutes ago, Tara and Rosita left Maggie asleep on the living room couch, with H.G. drifting off on her breast, and brought the three kids in here. Henry has just gone to retrieve a fleeing, toddling Gracie, who took off laughing down the hallway.

Meanwhile, Judith pounds on the keys of the piano.

"Judith! Quiet!" Tara yells. "People are sleeping!"

Judith taps the keys softly one by one by one with a plink plunk plink.

"Yeah. Right," Rosita says. " _Sleeping_. Everyone else gets to have  _fun_."

"Hey, at least you get to have fun  _sometimes_ ," Tara says. "I wouldn't complain if I was you. I may never have fun again."

"There's always Dianne," Rosita tells her.

"Dianne's  _not_  gay."

"Could have fooled me," Rosita replies. "Mason's handsome and charming as fuck and she hasn't taken the bait."

"Fwuck!" Judith yells.

Rosita looks pointedly at Tara. " _Don't_  tell Rick she learned that from me."

Tara laughs. "Oh, she learned that from you back in October."

The piano keys sound with a cacophonous clamor and Judith shouts, "Fwuck wes!"

[*]

"I could get used to afternoons like this," Carol says as she snuggles back against Daryl, spooning into him.

He could get used to lazy days like this, too, if he didn't spend so much time worrying about not being able to hunt.

"You're so warm," she says. "This is nice, isn't it?"

"Mhmhm…"

A little while ago, Carol invited him into bed for some "naked cuddling, no promises," but he's pretty sure he knows where it will end up. He just has to be patient. And he  _is_  being patient, he thinks, but his disobedient dick has begun to twitch at the feel of the soft round curve of one naked cheek pressed back against it. He nuzzles her neck and tries to think of something other than sex, but it's just not possible. "Ya smell good. Always smell so damn good."

"I smell like any woman."

"Nah," he says, kissing her bare shoulder. "Smell like m'gril."

She turns in his arms, which causes her ass to shift against his emerging erection in such a torturous way that his eyes fall shut. When he opens them again, she brings her lips to his. Slow afternoon kisses and gentle caresses unravel beneath the quilt.

Eventually, Carol arches her back, inviting him to play more intimately with her breasts, at least he assumes it's an invitation, because she sighs when he cups one and then the other, and she whimpers when he lightly pinches a nipple. He dips his head to taste everything his hands just touched.

Finally, Carol, squirming beneath his teasing attention, says, "I want you. Daryl, I want you now."

He reaches an arm out to the night stand, fumbles for the drawer, and yanks it open to find a condom. He tears the package open with his teeth. Carol claims the condom and rolls it on him. He pushes her onto her back, rakes her earlobe gently with his teeth, and murmurs, "Open 'em for me, m'girl. Spread yer legs."

She does, and he sinks into her with a low groan, which she captures with a kiss.

The sunlight seeping through the sheer curtains shines a spotlight on their lazy lovemaking. Carol's plaintive whimpers escape as she chews on her lower-lip in a sexy pout that makes him want to rock harder. But he doesn't it. He savors her.

"Feel so goddamn good," he murmurs as he thrusts in long, deliberate strokes, holding himself up in a plank so he can watch her breasts shift each time he drives into her. He loves to wach her body when it's taking pleasure from his, the way it moves, but, most of all, he loves every one of the little sounds she makes.

He stops moving now, just so he can hear her whimper, "Please…please, Daryl, please."

"Please what?"

She jerks her hips in a desperate cricle to try to force him to move. "Please. Please…. _please!_ "

He gives in and moves again, and once he does he loses all self-discipline. The box springs squeak and the headboard pounds against the wall until soon enough, she's shivering and clenching all around him and crying, "God, yes, oh Daryl, yes!" She buries her last, loudest yes against his shoulder.

The light seems to explode in the back of his eyes, and he shuts them hard, shudders through his own climax, and cries her name like a prayer of gratitude before collapsing atop her.

He recovers a moment before shifting his weight off, kissing her cheek, and muttering, "Almost hope that damn snow never melts."


	46. Chapter 46

On the fourth day of the snow-in, Michonne has some spotting, and she contacts Mason on the radio, who gets Dolly, who asks her a series of questions and then says, "It happens. Don't worry about it yet."

"But I'm in the second trimester now. Isn't it a little late for that?"

"Don't worry about it yet," Dolly repeats.

Rick worries, though. He doesn't sleep well that night. He paces the floor from the bed to the alcove where Judith sleeps and back to the bed. Again and again.

"Come to sleep," Michonne tells him.

The next day, the spotting stops. Elijah checks the baby's heartbeat with his stethoscope. Michonne is far enough long now that they should be able to hear it.

It's a long, nervous five minutes before he finds it and the dimples break out on both his cheeks. He gives Rick the ear piece. Rick bends his head to put them on, listens, and almost weeps with relief.

[*]

On the sixth day of the snow-in, Henry finds Trivial Pursuit. "Daryl's on my team," he insists.

"Uh…that's not a game ya want me on yer team for, kid."

But Henry insists he does, and he lays the game out on the library coffee table.

"Boys against girls," Michonne insists.

Ezekiel, who's been sitting on the couch next to Nabila and reading, shuts his book. He makes a pronounced yawning sound and stretches. "I think my bride and I will have to decline."

Nabila closes her book, pats her mouth, and yawns. "I  _am_  awfully tired. I think an afternoon nap would be a good idea, don't you?"

The newlyweds make their escape.

When the players settle around the coffee table, Rick looks at his team – Henry, Daryl, and Jerry on the floor – and the girls' team – Michonne, Tara, and Rosita on the couch and Carol in the armchair – and says, "I'm not sure these teams are  _fair_."

Judith, who's been giving toys to Gracie in the playpen, cries, "Ass kicker pways!" She toddle-runs over and plops down in the lap of Daryl, who is sitting before Carol's feet. "With Unca D!"

Rick smiles at her. "Oh, well,  _now_  it's even." He sits in the other empty armchair.

"Actually, babe," Michonne teases as she draws out the cards from the box. "This is the Baby Boomer edition, so you'll have an advantage."

Rick glares at her. "I'm Gen X, thank you very much."

Michonne laughs.

"I'm terrible at Trivia," Carol says. "I won't know anything."

Twenty minutes later, Daryl turns and shouts, "Liar!" because Carol has just earned her team its third pie piece. She pats his cheek and smiles innocently. He turns back toward the board.

Soon it's the boys' turn again. Michonne pulls out a card. "How much was minimum wage in 1950?"

"This is like a test for old people," Rosita says.

"I haven't known a single answer," Tara agrees.

"Do we get choices?" Henry asks.

"75 cents," Michonne reads, "$2.50, or $5.00."

"Five!" Judith shouts.

"Yeah," Henry agrees. "Five!"

"No," Daryl tells them. "Wasn't even five when I got my first job. Was $3.35."

"It was $3.80 when I got my first job," Rick says. "Geez, how old are you?"

"Same age as you. Got my first job at thirteen though."

"Is that even legal?" Jerry asks.

"Work permit," Daryl answers.

"Let's say $2.50 then," Jerry reasons.

"No," Rick and Daryl say at once. "Seventy-five cents," they agree.

"And right you are," Michonne tells them. "Too bad it's not a pie piece and you still have  _nothing_."

Henry crawls to the table and rolls the die and moves. "Pink pie piece if we get it!"

"Who was Wally Cleaver's best friend?" Michonne reads.

"Who's Wally Cleaver?" Jerry asks.

Rick looks at him in disbelief. "You can't be serious.  _Leave it to Beaver_?"

"Oh," Jerry says. "Is that the one with the talking horse?"

"My God," Rick mutters. "Didn't you watch the re-runs when you were a kid?"

"I watched  _The Love Boat_  reruns," Jerry answers. He grins. "I miss that show."

"I had a crush on Gopher," Carol admits.

"Gopher!" Michonne cries.

"Didn't he become a Congressman or something?" Tara asks.

"Eddie Haskell," Daryl answers.

When Michonne nods, Henry pumps his fist and scurries into the bag for a pie piece.

"I thought you didn't grow up with a TV set," Jerry says.

"How old you think I am?" Daryl asks.

"No, I mean, because you were poor and lived in a cabin in the woods."

"Pfft. Had a satellite dish. So did everyone else in them backwoods."

"And trucks worth more than the cabin, probably," Rosita says. "It was like that where I grew up."

"Ya grew up poor?" Daryl asks skeptically.

"Apartments, not cabins, but…yeah. Single mom. Six kids."

In the end, despite the brief turn-around, the boys and Judith are unable to win, and the girls' team seizes the victory.

Rosita looks at the tall wooden grandfather clock ticking in the corner. "Can I have the radio?" she asks Michonne. "I need to check in with Javier."

"Sure." Michonne turns it over to her.

Rosita grabs it, says, "I'll be in my room," and heads up the stairs.

"Why's she taking it to her bedroom?" Henry asks.

"Eww…" Jerry says. "I don't think I want to touch that radio again."

[*]

The second week of January, the weather warms and the snow finally begins to melt in thin streams that wind down the hills. Water trickles from the rooftop of the inn. After two days of this slow softening, the hunters emerge into the remaining eight inches of slush and snow.

Carol manages to trap a possum, but it's infested with worms. The grouse scatter from the trees before Dianne can sneak up on them and ready her bow. Daryl wounds a deer, tracks the brownish-red blood stains on the dirty-white snow, and finds it at last – being gnawed on by a walker.

"Hell you come from?" He shoots it in a head, rips out his arrow angrily, but doesn't waste the energy to kick the ugly thing this time. He's been quietly skipping his lunch rations because he's afraid the food will run out. He squats down and rifles through the creature's pockets. The best he can tell, it was out hunting somewhere in these woods when the world stopped.

He comes home empty handed and grumbles in the bedroom as he sheds his muddy clothes.

"Jesus and Aaron left for a supply run," Carol reassures him when he's changing. "They're looking for medicines to trade to Dead End for food."

"Hell they gonna find 'em?" They haven't had much luck with medicines, not since the pharmacy aisle find at the General Store in Clifton. Most pharmacies are already looted these days, overrun by walkers, or burnt out.

"They're going to the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Bluemont. Rosita checked with Javier. The Weatherfords never thought to loot it. But it might have medicines. Antibiotics especially. Birth control so we don't have to keep using condoms. And a doppler for Rick and Michonne, so they can check the heartbeat more easily and more regularly."

He looks at her and grins. "Be nice."

"The doppler?"

"Nah. Meant…gettin' to feel ya. Without…be nice is all."

[*]

With the snow mostly gone, Javier, Mason, and Carson pay a visit. They ask for more gun powder. In exchange, the Hillcrest family receives three pound of bacon and four bags of homemade dried pork rinds.

"One serving of protein per person per day for seven days," Maggie says.

Mason blinks.

"Sorry," she tells him. "It's a mental habit now. And to think I got a C- in algebra."

There's also half a dozen fresh eggs and a gallon of fresh milk. "That's all?" Rosita asks.

"A thank you would be nice," Javier says. "You're giving us  _one jar_  of gun powder."

"I'm sorry, it's just…you usually bring at least two gallons and two  _dozen_  eggs. And there's usually butter."

"The chickens slow down their laying in winter," Javier tells her. "The lambs don't ewe until late March. We had to stop milking them in December. The goats we still milk twice a day, but we have a lot of children at Dead End."

"So even if Jesus and Aaron come back with lots of antibiotics and birth control pills," Rosita asks, "you won't trade milk and eggs for it?"

"We'll see what we can do," Javier assures her.

[*]

Dinner is a boisterous affair as usual, though the Dead Enders have only brought one loaf of bread, one sweet potato pie, and two bottles of wine this time, which means only half a glass per adult.

"My father has been paying closer attention to the accounts this winter," Mason explains. "I'm considered to have imbibed more than my fair share this past fall."

"He thinks you've been drinking everything you brought here?" Dianne asks.

"He believes I've become quite the lush."

"Well, you can't become something you've always been," Javier quips.

"He's not going to be too thrilled with all those pork rinds you checked out either, amigo."

"Well, then I'll remind him if it weren't for my husbandry, all of those pigs would have been diseased in December. I can get away with more than  _you_  can anyway, old man. He respects me."

"He does," Mason agrees. "Me…I never could do a damn thing that was good enough for that man." He sips from his water glass, because he's not taking a share of the wine tonight.

"Are you all staying the night?" Rosita asks.

"If we're invited," Mason answers.

[*]

Javier shuts the door of Rosita's bedroom and turns the lock, grinning while it clicks. She's grinning too, though she yelps when he seizes her by the hips and lifts her onto the vanity. The little desk shudders, and a hairbrush topples from the ledge.

Javier puts a hand on each of Rosita's knees, spreads them, and yanks her onto the edge of the vanity until his crotch bumps hers. She wraps her legs around him as his lips crush down on her mouth, and soon he's tearing greedily at the buttons of her shirt.

[*]

Carson tosses his rolled-up sleeping bag on the love seat of the third-floor living room that is Elijah's bedroom and slides to the floor and stretches his legs out beneath the coffee table. "What are we building now?"

Enid rises from the rocking chair by the fireplace. "Goodnight."

"You can stay and help," Elijah tells her.

"No, that's okay. I'll leave you boys to your toys." She raises the book in her hand. "I'm in the middle of a really good novel anyway."

"I'll walk – "

"- No need," she tells Elijah. She puts a hand on his shoulder and kisses his cheek, and whispers, "Really, I want you to have fun."

[*]

Downstairs in the library, Mason leaves his stack of blankets on the couch and follows Daryl outside to smoke. Their breath makes gray clouds in the air as Mason reaches into his front pocket for one of his hand-rolled cigarettes.

"Nah," Daryl says. "My turn this time." He hands Mason one of the three cigars Carol put in his stocking and takes one out for himself. He already smoked the third, when they were snowed in.

" _Nice_ ," Mason says. "We've smoked through all the cigars at Dead End."

Daryl flicks open his pocket knife, cuts the cigar, and passes the knife to Mason, who does the same.

When they're smoking, Daryl says, "My daddy gave me a shit time, too. Nothin' I could do that was right. But  _he_  was the dumbass."

"Well, my father is not that," Mason replies. "He never had more than an 8th grade education, but he's clever. And he was always generous with the field hands. I'll give him that. I think he was more generous with them than he was with his own sons. Still is." Mason blows out a ring of smoke that scatters. "My mother always told me he just wanted what was best for his children. I suppose he did, as long as what was best was staying to work the family vineyard." He turns to Daryl. "Did your father want you to follow in his footsteps?"

"Didn't leave no footsteps," Daryl mutters. "All he ever did was collect disability. Drink. Whore. Hunt."

"He hunted while injured?"

"Pfft." Daryl takes the cigar from his mouth and lets it rest at his side between his fingers. "Didn't have no disability. Worked at a loading dock six years. Said he threw out his back or some shit. Got some doctor to sign off on it. Dunno."

"And how'd you turn out so well?" Mason asks.

"World ended. Not being able to do shit but hunt wasn't such a bad thing."

"Oh, I think you can do a lot more than hunt," Mason says.

The screen door creaks open and Dianne steps out. "Any more of those cigars?" she asks.

"I didn't think you smoked." Mason hands her the rest of his.

"I don't. Not cigarettes."

He smiles as she sucks in on the end and the tip glows red.

Daryl's not much of a matchmaker, but he's not so dense he can't guess this would be a good time to make himself scare. He hands his cigar to Mason. "Finish mine. Think Carol needs my help with somethin'."

[*]

"Shit!" Elijah mutters as the robot turns in a circle.

"It's the wheel lock," Carson says and turns it over to turn it off. He looks at the curtain that hangs down in the entry way to the library. "Finally got some privacy, huh?"

"Yeah, Carol put that up for me."

"Got tired of walking past you whacking off?"

"Shut up!" Elijah flushes beet red, but then he laughs. "It's good to have the curtain."

"How are things going with Enid?"

"Slowly. But uh…good."

"I couldn't seal the deal with Martina either. But if I did, I wouldn't have knocked her up like Santiago did." Carson stands. "I'm going to go get another wheel bearing out of the truck."

[*]

Mason and Dianne have gotten to talking about their lost daughters. "Charlotte was working on her master's in Russian literature," Mason says. "No idea what she planned to do with that."

Dianne chuckles. "Emily wanted to grow up to be a marine biologist."

"Don't all little girls? Let me guess. She wanted to work with  _dolphins_."

Dianne smiles. "Was it hard for you raising Carson?" she asks seriously. "Knowing he was another man's son? Did it remind you all the time?"

"Well, I – "

" _-What?_ "

They turn to see Carson standing at the screen door. He must have opened the front door very quietly.

"Son – " Mason says.

"You're not my father?"

"I'm so sorry," Dianne says. "I had no idea he was – "

Mason waves a hand at her. "It's not your fault."

Carson shakes his head.

"Son," Mason says, "Listen – "

Carson throws open the screen door and thunders past him toward the truck. Mason stubs out his cigar on the rail and follows.


	47. Chapter 47

From the watch stand, Tara can hear Carson shouting at Mason. Through her binoculars, they come into view by the tailgate of the pick-up, Mason with his cowboy hat pushed up on his forehead because he's got his hand dug into his thick blonde hair and Carson pacing back and forth across the crunchy snow as he yells and intermittently throws up his hand.

Tara swings her binoculars over to the porch, where Dianne looks gloomier than usual. A few minutes ago, she was smiling and laughing with Mason. Dianne's smiles are a sight that Tara, as her roommate, gets to see more often than most people – but they're still rare. So it surprised her to see the woman smiling so much with Mason. All that warmth is gone now, though, and Dianne looks like she's just accidentally stepped in a bear trap.

Tara sweeps all the way around in a circle, so it doesn't look like she's interested in what's going on, but it's hard not to be.

"You're saying mom was a cheater!" Carson is shouting.

Mason replies calmly enough that Tara can't hear what he says.

"You told  _her_  but not  _me_!" Carson yells. "Some woman you hardly even know! What, did you think that would help you get in her pants somehow?"

"Don't be crass," Mason says sharply, and then lowers his voice so Tara can't hear.

"Who was he?" Carson shouts, "My  _real_  dad?"

Mason's voice gets a little louder this time, enough that Tara can make out, "….how you're defining  _real_ …"

"Who the hell was he?" Carson's voice floats on the air. "Is he still alive?"

Tara turns left and sees Dianne disappearing into the house, like a dog with its tail between its legs.

[*]

Ezekiel swings open the lower gate for Jesus and Aaron. They drive up the hill, the chains on their tires gripping the last of the snow. The truck slips and slides twice on the way up, and Jesus has to give it some gas. As they approach the rear watch stand, they can see Mason and Carson talking animatedly by the tailgate of their pickup. The discussion looks intense.

"What do you suppose is going on there?" Aaron asks.

"Family drama," Jesus replies.

"Glad we don't have any of that."

"Yet."

Aaron snorts.

Mason and Carson stop talking when Jesus pulls the truck to a stop next to theirs. He jumps out on one side and Aaron on the other and both round the back.

"Find anything worthwhile?" Tara shouts from the rear watch stand.

Jesus gives her a thumbs up. Then he nods to Mason and flings down his tailgate to reveal several cardboard boxes full of medicines, surgical equipment, diapers, and formula. "What will Dead End trade us for some of this?" he asks Mason.

Mason pokes around and answers, "Javier will want some of those diapers for when his niece has the baby. I don't trust the formula at this point. It's sat through three summers. And we have a wet nurse if need be. But we  _definitely_  want the antibiotics."

"Well, not all of them," Jesus says.

"Half maybe?" Mason suggests. "And probably a few boxes of that Plan B and half the birth control pills. We can give you six fertilized chicken eggs for them in early March. And an incubator. That's valuable. You'll be able to raise your own chickens, and then they can lay eggs for you."

"That would be great," Aaron replies. "But we don't have  _time_  to raise our own meat. We need more food for the rest of the winter."

"I realize that. So, assuming our animals produce, we can also come back in two to three weeks with fresh eggs and fresh milk. We'll be slaughtering an older sheep soon. We can spare a few pounds of mutton. We've got some beef jerky we looted at the start. Sunflower seeds. Dried apricots. I'll have Javier radio in and work out the details with your Council."

Carson is staring into the bed of the pick-up at the box of birth control. He laughs.

"What's so funny?" Jesus asks.

"I just realized something." Carson slaps Mason on the back. "It's okay you're not my dad."

"Carson, I've raised you since the day – "

"- Yeah. I know. But I mean, it's okay we aren't related by blood. It's great actually!"

"I'm…confused," Mason admits.

Jesus and Aaron exchange glances, each grab a box, and head inside as Mason and Carson resume their conversation.

[*]

Carol shuts her book and lays it on the nightstand when Daryl enters the bedroom. "I thought you'd be hanging out with Mason for a while."

A fire laps the logs of the fireplace, and her solar power lamp glows on the nightstand. The bed squeaks as Daryl sits on one side and yanks off a boot. "Dianne came out. Wanted to suck on his cigar."

"You sound jealous that I didn't come out and ask to suck on  _your_  cigar."

"Stop." He pulls off his other boot and turns slightly on the bed. "Wait. That mean ya  _want_  to suck on my cigar?"

"Not at the moment."

He turns back and peels off his socks. He sheds his jacket and tosses it toward the vanity chair. It hits the floor nearby. Carol opts not to nag him about it.

He swivels into bed, on top of the quilt, with a sigh. Then he rolls over, scoots down, and lays his head on her lap, which is covered by the quilt. "Read to me."

"I don't think you want me to read you the book I was just reading."

"Hell not?"

"It's a trashy romance novel."

He peers up at her. "Yeah? Been doin' some one-handed readin'? I interrupt somethin'?"

She flushes. "No."

He grins lecherously and resettles his head in her lap. She strokes his hair, and he closes his eyes. "Go on and read it," he mumbles.

"You're just hoping it works me up. It won't. The writing's too terrible."

"Hell's the point of reading it then?"

"I don't know. Because it's completely mindless and for a little while I don't have to think about rations or trapping or stretching the recipes. And because I tried so hard and couldn't make it through  _War and Peace_. I really wanted to. I want to be that smart woman who's read  _War and Peace_."

" _Pffft_. Can tell ya everythin' ya need to know 'bout it."

"Really?"

"'S 'bout Russia."

She laughs. "You really want me to read this trash to you?"

"Like yer voice. 'S sweet n' sexy."

She smiles and picks up the book. "I'm forty pages in."

"Think I can manage to pick up the plot."

"How do you know?" she asks. "Maybe it's full of elaborate twists and turns."

"We at boy meets girl?" he asks, "or boy gets girl? Or boy loses girl?"

"Us?" She runs a fingertip gently around his ear and then tucks a strand of hair behind it. " _We're_  at boy  _keeps_  girl."

"Mhmhmmm…Do that again."

She continues to trace his ear softly with one finger while she opens the book with her other hand. "The people in the story though…they're just about to meet. He's a can't-be-tamed fireman, and she's a bold, no-time-for-a-husband civil rights lawyer. She's cooking herself dinner and has just gone into the living room with a glass of wine when the toaster sparks."

"Mhmhm. Bet she ain't got no panties on when the house catches fire."

Carol chuckles. "She's just come home from a hard day's work at the office, actually, so she's in business attire."

"Mhmm. High heels 'n a short black skirt and no panties."

Carol shakes her head and smiles. She's read two pages before Daryl interrupts - "Skip to the sex part."

"If you insist." Carol throws the book across the room. It hits the arm chair by the fireplace and lands with a thud on the floor. "Your head's already in my lap. So get to work."

[*]

"Knock, knock!" Enid shouts before she parts the curtain and steps inside the living room. Elijah is immersed in his work on his robot. She slides her finished novel back into the bookcase and grabs another one. "Where's Carson?"

"Uh…" Elijah glances at the clock as if awaking from a daze. "I don't know. He went to get a wheel bearing. He's been gone a while."

Just then the curtain swings open and Carson walks in. He glances at Enid. "Sorry. Not interrupting anything?"

Enid laughs. "No."

"Where have you been?" Elijah asks.

"Talking to my dad." Carson tosses the wheel bearing on the coffee table and then flops down into the arm chair. "Well,  _not_  my dad apparently. Not biologically. Because it turns out my mom cheated on him, and someone else is my dad."

"Whoa," Enid says. "And he chose  _now_  to tell you this?"

"He  _didn't_  tell me. I overheard him talking to that woman about it. The one he's trying to make it with. What's her name?"

"Dianne?" Enid asks.

"Yeah."

"Wow." Elijah shakes his head. "You must be pissed off!"

"I was. Disappointed in my mom. Pissed off at him." Carson grins. "But then suddenly I saw the silver lining."

Enid's brow furrows with confusion. "Yeah. And what's that?"

"My cousins are  _not_  my cousins. He's not my dad, so none of those girls are blood-related to me. Not one. And three of them are within three years of my age." Carson flings up three fingers. "That's  _three_  more fish in the sea."

Enid crinkles her nose in an expression of disgust. "But…you  _grew up_  with them."

"No, I didn't. That's just the thing. I didn't meet a single one of them until we fled to Dead End after the Epidemic. My dad was estranged from my grandfather. The only one in the Weatherford family I knew at all was my Aunt Dolly, because she came to visit us. She's not the mom of any of those girls anyway. She's never been married. I think maybe she's gay."

"Dolly's the one who's going to midwife for Michonne?" Enid asks, and when Carson nods, she says, "How old is she?" Enid couldn't tell. Dolly had long, luxurious nearly white hair but  _looked_  young in the face.

"I don't know. Younger than my dad. Older than his half-sister Henrietta. Why?"

Enid shrugs. She's thinking of Tara. She's not sure Tara and Dolly even met that time Dolly came to check on Michonne.

"Are any of them hot?" Elijah asks. "Your cousins?"

"Hey, you've  _got_  a girlfriend!" Enid reminds him.

"I'm not asking for  _me_."

"One's really pretty but kind of dumb," Carson replies. "One's really smart but kind of homely. And one's average both ways. I think I'll go for the average one. My dad always says moderation in all things." He winces. "My.. _dad_ ," he repeats, like the word is a foreign object on his tongue. "My real dad… he was some kind of professor. My mom was his student."

"Eww," Enid says.

"Well, she was like twenty-eight at the time. She was in grad school. She'd gone back to school after quitting to have my older sister." He sighs. "I can't believe she was the type to cheat. They seemed to have a good marriage."

"Maybe they did," Enid says sympathetically. "Do any of us really know what goes on in our parent's marriages? I used to think mine were on the brink of divorce, but when the Outbreak happened…they really pulled together." She bites her bottom lip. "Until they were pulled apart by walkers."

Elijah comes over and gives her a hug. When he pulls away, he says, "My parents were divorced. I got on that blood bus with my mom and brother. I don't even know if my dad's still alive."

"I don't know if mine is either," Carson says. "If so, he's in California."

"Your dad  _is_  still alive," Elijah tells him. "He's downstairs in the library. Maybe you should go talk to him some more."

Carson nods, stands, and makes his way through the curtain.

[*]

When Dianne goes to apologize to Mason for spilling the beans, he and Carson are talking in the library, so she disappears silently to the room she shares with Tara and cranks up the space heater. She'll have to save her apology for the morning.

At least Mason and Carson were talking  _calmly_  this time. That gives her some hope she hasn't exploded their relationship.

[*]

Daryl and Carol lie naked beneath the quilt, limbs intertwined in the aftermath of their mutual exchange. Carol has her head on his chest and her leg wedged comfortably between two of his. "You've gotten a lot better at that part," she says. She's still trembling a little bit from the second time he brought her to orgasm, after his turn.

"I suck at it before?" he asks.

" _No_. That's not what I meant."

"Hell ya mean then?"

"It was  _always_  good," she says. "It's just…it's been a lot  _better_  the past several times."

"Can't be  _a lot_  better less 'n it wasn't good to start," he reasons.

"Maybe there was a bit of trial and error at first. No big deal."

His muscles tense slightly, and she wishes she'd never started down this conversational road.

"Ain't never done it 'fore you," he mutters.

"Really?" teases Carol, hoping to lighten the mood. "I popped your cherry?"

"Givn' I mean. Not gettin'. Got plenty."

Now  _her_  muscles tense. "I don't want to know about you getting plenty."

"Well, not  _that_  much," he admits. Then, a finger toying with the hairline at the back of her neck, he asks, "You done that a lot 'fore me? Gettin'?"

"Ed had no interest in giving. I only had one boyfriend before I met him. My high school boyfriend…and that's all we did. Both ways, I mean."

"'N he was good at it?"

He  _was_  good at it. Or maybe she was just young and horny and every bit of it was wild and exciting and new, and she didn't have any relationship baggage yet. But Carol doesn't say any of that. She says, "He was seventeen and then he was eighteen. And we were virgins. And I'm sorry I said anything. I really like it, Daryl. You're good at it. That's all I was  _trying_  to say. That it's really good."

He rolls on his side, which forces her on her side, and drapes an arm around her waist, but he looks down while he's talking and not in her eyes. "If somethin' ain't good…ya know…ya can tell me. 'M gonna try to fix it for ya. I know I ain't…I mean, I've fucked. Time to time. Women. But not the same woman more 'n twice. Didn't learn nothin'. I ain't never made love to a woman 'fore you. Wanna do it right."

Carol smiles, puts a finger under his chin, and tilts it up to kiss him softly on the lips. "You're doing it right," she assures him. "But thank you. It's good to know we can talk about…stuff. If and when we ever need to."

He kisses her, draws her flush against his flesh, and then bends his forehead against hers. "Love ya, Carol. Know I don't say it much…but…I do."

"I know you do. And you do say it. Every day. In a hundred little ways. And I love you, too." She kisses him one last time, turns around, and spoons back into his familiar embrace.


	48. Chapter 48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you know I’m an author in “real life.”  If you are interested in reading one of my books, I’m having some Kindle Countdown Sales. You can find them on Amazon if you search for “Molly Taggart” (which is my penname). Roots that Clutch, which is my personal favorite of the novels I have written, will be on sale for 99 cents May 4 - 11. The Caterer's Husband will also be on sale for 99 cents May 4-10. These deals are available in the Amazon U.K. store as well.

Early in the morning, before the sun has risen, Dianne lights the wooden stove in the kitchen, makes coffee, and attacks her crossword puzzle. She’s five minutes into it when Mason, rubbing the sleep dust from his blue eyes, sits down across from her. The steam from her cup of coffee rises and curls in the air.

“I’m  _really sorry_  about last night,” she says. “If I had known Carson was there – “

“- Don’t trouble yourself. We got it all sorted. More or less.”

“Really?” she asks skeptically.

“He was happier about finding out his female cousins aren’t related to him than he was angry with me.”

“Ah.”

“It worries me sometimes, these kids,” Mason muses. “Such a small world. So few people in it. Most of them will marry for convenience instead of love, if they manage to marry at all.”

“I don’t know,” she replies. “I married for love and that turned out terribly. I guess a marriage of convenience has as good a chance of working as any marriage. Maybe better.”

“I suppose it depends how you define  _working_. But people do need companionship.” He nods at the crossword she’s studying. “Haven’t solved it yet?”

 “This is a different one than the last time you were here. What’s a five-letter word for elusive?”

“Diane.”

She smiles. “I spell it with two n’s actually.”

“Goddess of the hunt,” he says.

“That was Diana.”

“A hunter  _and_  a scholar. Well now…be still my heart.”

She smiles again. That must be sufficient encouragement, because Mason asks, “Would you like to go for a ride, Dianne? On Bullseye? I imagine he needs the exercise after all this snow. Just for forty minutes or so. While the sun rises. No expectations. Just a winter’s ride?”

“I think I would like that,” she says.

“With  _me_ , I mean.”

She chuckles. “I knew what you meant. And the answer’s still yes.” She drains the last two sips of her coffee. “But keep your hands where I can see them.”

Mason keeps one hand on the reins, and the other wrapped loosely around her waist. It’s comfortable –  _comforting_. Eventually, Dianne leans back against his chest. He’s a solid man, wrapped in the scent of smoke and suede, and she likes the sound of his slow, gentle drawl when he speaks.  “I suppose you overheard some of what Carson said last night?”

“I went inside,” she answers. “It didn’t seem right to linger.”

“But you were there when he said what he said about me trying to get in your pants?”

“I was there,” she admits.

“It was crude of him, and in other circumstances I would have chastised him further, but I fear I’ve lost my authority.”

“He was angry. And rightly so.”

“You think I should have told him sooner?” Mason asks.

“That’s not what I meant. You did what you thought was best, for his protection. But it’s natural he was angry. His world got turned on its head. And he doesn’t know that I guessed the truth. I suppose it does seem strange to him, if he thinks you just volunteered that information up to me. I was the one who was prying. I’m sorry for that. I shouldn’t have asked. It wasn’t my business.”

He kicks lightly at Bullseye to steer the horse back around where the path dead ends. “It wasn’t your business to take an interest in me?”  

“Is that what I was doing?” she asks with a smile.

His one arm tightens around her. “I like to think so.”

When they reach the barn twenty minutes later, with the sun now fully risen and melting the snow down another inch, he dismounts and then helps her down, with a hand on each hip. She can do it herself, but she doesn’t protest.

Mason pets the gelding’s mane. “I missed you, boy,” he says. He looks at Dianne. “I hope he’s served you well?”

“He hasn’t had much of a chance to lately,” Dianne says. “But he will.” She sets out a bucket of water for Bullseye, from which he slurps thirstily. “I like his name. Bullseye.”

“I thought you might.”

“I suppose it’s more rifle-related for you?” she asks.

“Perhaps you could teach me to shoot a bow sometime. I used to when I was a youth. Compound bow, though. I wasn’t terrible.”

“Maybe I could sometime,” she agrees. She sneaks a sugar cube from her pocket, which she smuggled from the pantry, and offers it to the horse. “Thank you for the ride.”

“Are you saying that to him or me?” Mason asks.

“You.”

Mason tips his hat. “Well, thank  _you_.”

“I do have to take the lower watch now, though.” She puts a hand on Mason’s upper arm and kisses him on the cheek, which seems to startle him. She wonders how much he really wants something to happen between them, and how much he’s just killing time and reminding himself he’s still capable.  But maybe she needs to do the same thing – remind herself she’s still  _capable_. Capable - after all the horrors this world has brought both before and after the collapse - of caring for someone in that gentle way. “Have a safe trip back to Dead End.”

“Thank you. You too.”

She smiles. “I’m not going to Dead End.”

“Yes. Of course….I meant…Have a…have a good watch time. Time of watching. In the stand, I mean. Have a good day.”

Mason’s flustering amuses her, especially given how smooth he usually is. “I’ll try.” Her fingers slide from his arm and she heads to the watch stand.

 [*]

Daryl’s just begun to turn the knob of the kitchen door to head out to hunt when Carol says, “Would you mind clearing your breakfast bowl instead of leaving it for me to do?”

He turns. “But ya always clear it.”

“I’m tired of clearing it. You have two legs, you can clear your own bowl.”

“A….ight.” He eyes her warily as he picks up the bowl and sets it in the sink with a clang. Then he turns and starts walking toward the door.

“You could wash it, too, you know,” Carol says.

“Ya said  _clear it_. Not  _wash_  it.” He walks back to the sink. “Ya on the rag or something?”

“Poor choice of question, Daryl.”

“I’m washin’ it! Washin’! See, water’s in the bowl. Scrubbin’ it too.” He dries the bowl when he’s done. “Dunno where it goes.”

“You can leave it on the counter.”

He tiptoes past her on the kitchen bench but pauses when she says, “We’d been married two years before I asked Ed to wash his own bowl out. He hadn’t hit me yet at that point, but you know what he did when I asked him that?”

Daryl turns. “Don’t think I wanna know.”

“He picked up the bowl and threw it over my head at the opposite wall. It shattered into a hundred pieces, and then he yelled,  _Clean it up, you stupid bitch_.  _Every last piece better be off this floor when I get home_. And the sad thing was…I  _did_. I cleaned it up. I got every last piece.”

Daryl slides down onto the bench next to her. “You was  _testing_  me?” He’s irritated at the thought, but he tries not to show it. 

“No,” she says quietly. “I was testing  _myself_. Making sure  _I_  wasn’t afraid to ask. Making sure I’ve finally shed that old reflexive fear. It sounds stupid, I know…but - ”

“- Did ya pass?”

She laughs. “Yeah, I passed. I wasn’t the least bit afraid to ask.”

 “So, this mean I got to clean my breakfast bowl from now on or not?”

“Does it matter?”

“Nah. ‘S just…like it when ya clean it,” he admits. “Makes me feel….” He shrugs.

“Taken care of?”

“Ain’t never been taken care of before. ‘S nice is all. Can clean my own damn bowl. Grown ass man. Just…’s nice is all.”

She does that smile she does sometimes, like she’s happy but she’s about to cry.  He never knows how to react to that smile. It twists his heart into all kinds of awful knots.

“I love you, Daryl,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to wash your bowl.” She leans in and kisses him, and he gets lost in the taste of her lips, until the kettle on the wood stove whistles, and he remembers he’s supposed to go hunt.

 [*]

Javier sits at the edge of the bed, buttoning his shirt, while Rosita, still naked, lies on her side with her head propped up on her hand. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she says.

“You should come back to Dead End with me,” he replies.

“I thought Amos didn’t allow visitors.”

“He doesn’t.  But he  _will_  take in family. The brother and sister-in-law of one of the field hands found their way to Dead End three months before your people got here. Amos took them in, because they were the field hand’s family.”

 “I’m not anyone’s family.”

He turns and puts a hand down on the mattress. “But you could be. If you were my wife.”

Rosita laughs. When she sees his face, she stops. “You’re serious?”

“Why not?”

“You know I’m not interested in being barefoot and pregnant and popping out babies, right?”

“We’d only have four.”

She raises an eyebrow.

He smiles. “I could compromise on two.”

“I don’t want any children.”

His face falls.

“God, Javier, this is not the world to bringing children into.”

“We can always discuss that a year from now, when you see how good things are at Dead End. How self-sufficient we are. When you see the other babies growing up.”

Rosita opens her mouth. “I…” Then she closes it. “Is this a proposal?”

“Sure.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I need time to think about it.”

“ _Now’s_  the time. The temperature will drop. Old lady Juanita says she can feel it in her bones, and she’s never wrong. The last of the snow will ice over soon. The trucks won’t grip the roads for two, three weeks.”

“Even with chains and four-wheel drive?”

“Not enough to get up  _these_  hills – not without any salt on the roads. They’ll be like a skating rink. Things are tight here, with the rations. I can see that. Come with me now, and there’s one less adult mouth to feed here. And you’ll be set at Dead End. I have the steward’s suite in the servant’s quarters. It’s very nice. There’s even a little study and a sitting room and a private bathroom. It will be like we have our own apartment. But you can only come if I introduce you as my wife.”

Rosita studies her fingertips on the sheet for a moment. “No,” she says.

Javier stands abruptly and rips his boots off the floor. He thuds down on the chair by the vanity and yanks one on. “Fine.”

“I love you, Javier. I do – “

“- Sure.” He slaps his boot down on the floor and laces it violently.

“Marriage is a  _very big_  deal. I can’t just  _marry_  you so I can get into Dead End. And I can’t just walk away from my people like that. I’ve been with them since Georgia. I’ve been with them through a war and two collapses.”

“You’ll  _still_  see them.” Javier yanks on and hastily laces his other boot as he speaks. “When we come to trade. But that’s not  _really_  why you’re saying no, is it?” He stands and seizes his coat from off the vanity. “You just don’t want to marry me. You’re not that serious. Fine. I get it.” He shrugs into his coat. “So we keep fucking a few times a month, and that’s it. That’s all this is. No? It’s all it’s ever going to be.”

“Javier – “

“It’s not like I won’t take it, Rosita. I’ll take whatever you give me.”  He yanks open the door.

“Javier – “ she calls, but he’s already gone.


	49. Chapter 49

The rest of the morning, Rosita busies herself by reloading ammunition in the garage. She uses up the last of the bullets, but there's still plenty of brass and a little gunpowder for trade. Her gut is a tangled knot. She wishes Javier hadn't stormed out like that. She wishes they could have talked it through. She thinks of radioing him a dozen times, and chickens out….again and again.

With most of the snow gone, Jesus and Aaron manage to pump out the septic tank, which is almost full. Tara and Morgan do a controlled burn of the trash in a disposal ditch. Jerry, Rick, and Ezekiel chop more wood, re-filling the piles that were depleted during the snow-in.

Dianne takes Bullseye for a ride to the forest clearing, where she dismounts and shouts to rustle the crows from the trees, but she only manages to bring down one. Carol checks her traps and finds them sadly empty except for a single fox squirrel.

Daryl tracks and slays a coyote, but when he cuts it open, the intestines are teething with whipworms. He sighs and skins it, keeping only the hide.

[*]

Daryl is walking out of the field and toward the parked vehicles, swinging the coyote hide by its tail, when the door of the blood bus opens and Enid comes out, followed by Elijah. The young man has his button-down shirt untucked. The tail comes out from underneath his sweatshirt, and it's pulled way,  _way_  down. Daryl might have skipped right over the dry humping stage in high school, but he still knows what that means. Elijah's guilty eyes go straight to the ground.

"Enid," Daryl grunts.

She stops walking and, looking embarrassed, tucks a strand of her mussed-up brown hair behind her ear. "Yeah?"

"Carol taught ya to sew?"

"Ummm…yeah."

"Gonna need yer help. Wanna make her a coyote hat for Valentine's Day."

"Uh…okay."

"Got to prep the hide first. Take a couple weeks. Only gonna have a day to sew it."

"Okay," Enid says. "I'll see what I can do."

"Don't tell Carol nothin'."

Enid nods and Daryl walks on. He can hear Elijah saying to her, "Never pegged him for a made-up Hallmark holiday type of guy."

"I don't care if it's a made-up Hallmark holiday," Enid replies. "I better be getting something, too."

[*]

As Javier predicted, the temperature plunges that evening. Everything ices over. The next morning, it's a slip and slide going to the watch stand. No one is driving anywhere anytime soon.

Morgan finds two bags of road salt in the garage and sprinkles a trail from the porch to the watch stand, from the watch stand to the barn, from the barn to the smokehouse, from the smokehouse to the icehouse, from the icehouse to the outdoor grills, and from the outdoor grills to the greenhouse - creating one long, weaving, narrow walkable path.

The many buckets and plastic containers they filled with stream water in December are now completely frozen. Rick and his team crack out the ice and stack it in the ice house.  _The Key to Our Future_ says that if the ice house is kept well sealed and well packed, only half the ice will have melted by the end of summer, and they can refill it next winter. They'll have a refrigerator for the warm and hot months.

[*]

When he awakes the next morning, Daryl is aching all over. He groans as he rises to a sitting position. When he raises his shirt to look down at his chest, Carol gasps. "What did you  _do_  to yourself?"

"Might of slipped and fell a few times huntin' yesterday."

" _Might_  have?"

"Did. Guess I got bruised up."

"You  _guess_. Strip down to your boxers. I'll be back."

She returns with bruise cream from their stash of medical supplies. Carol rubs it all over the purple and blue splotches on his back, chest, and legs while he winces. As she seals the tube, she says, "Maybe hold off on the hunting until the ice melts?"

"Could be two weeks. Or more. Need meat."

"But you didn't come back with meat. You came back with bruises. Give it a break, Daryl."

Daryl heads out anyway. He makes it as far as the greenhouse on the salted trail when he already begins to feel the cold in his bones. He glances at the thermometer adhered to the door, which measures the outside temperature. Nine degrees? He didn't know Virginia could even  _get_  that cold.

The wind whips his face and it feels even colder. Maybe Carol's right. Maybe there's no point in hunting today.

He turns and heads back inside.

[*]

Dianne ventures out to check on Bullseye. She drapes a stable blanket over the horse, brushes out his mane, and sees that the fresh bucket of water she set out yesterday has developed chunks of ice. She goes inside the kitchen to pour him a fresh one from the faucet, passing Jerry on the way as he carries firewood inside the inn.

While she's inside, she borrows the radio from Michonne and calls Dead End to ask Mason what they do to keep their horses warm in weather like this.

"Bullseye will be fine. Just make sure the blanket stays dry. Maybe put a turnout blanket on him instead, even though you aren't riding him in this ice. The red one I left behind. It's waterproof."

"Thank you. I will."

"Listen, do you know what transpired between Javier and Rosita?"

"No. Why?"

"It's just that he left in a snit the other morning, and he's been a pain in the ass – excuse my French - ever since. She didn't break up with him did she?"

"I don't think so," Dianne answers. "I know as much as you do."

When she's done talking, filling the bucket, and bringing Bullseye his water, she walks carefully along the salted trail to the watch stand, scales the ladder, and delivers the radio to Rosita. "Thought you might want this to call Javier."

Rosita takes the radio and looks at Dianne suspiciously. "Thanks."

[*]

Rosita clips the radio to her belt and buries her hands deep in her pockets. The lower watch has been cancelled – it's too slippery to get up and down that long hill. The upper watch has been re-assigned in one-hour shifts, because it's too cold for anyone to stand out here much longer than that. Rosita only takes her gloved hands out of her pockets every five minutes to do a sweep of the perimeter through the binoculars. She does a sweep now and returns her hands to her pockets.

The radio on her hip crackles. "Javier Santos. Come in."

Her heart seizes. She slides one hand from her pocket, unclips the radio, and answers, "Rosita." She lets go of the button and waits anxiously.

"I'm sorry I got so angry," he says.

The relief eases through her like a wave of warmth. She brings the radio to her mouth. "And you said  _I_  had a Latin temper."

"Well, you do."

Rosita smiles. "Can we talk about it now? Calmly?"

"We can try."

"Marriage," she says. "It's a really big deal. I've never  _been_  married."

"There's a first time for everything, hermosa," Javier replies.

"I'd rather it be a  _last_  time."

"I understand that. Believe me, so would I. But who are you waiting for? Prince Charming?"

"We've dated four months."

"And what's four months in this world?" he asks. "It's half a lifetime."

"My mother got married at 18. She had six children. I was the last. My father left when I was born. And it was hard. She had a hard life. She did what she had to…but it was hard."

"I'm not going anywhere, Rosita. I'm not that man. And we don't have to have children right away. We can wait until you're ready."

"And if I'm never ready?" she asks.

"I want children again," he answers. "I'm not going to lie about that. But I want you  _more_. Will you be my wife?"

Rosita closes her eyes. "Give me some time to think about it."

There's no response.

"I'm asking for time," she says. "I'm not saying  _no_."

"But it's no for now?" he asks.

"Yes. No for  _now_. But that's doesn't mean no  _forever_. This isn't  _nothing_  to me, Javier.  _Te amo_. I do."

"I love you, too. But when should I ask again? March?"

Rosita laughs. "Maybe May."

[*]

Daryl doesn't hunt the next day either, but on the third day, he tries again. He comes back with a fresh bruise and no food.

That same afternoon, from out of seeming nowhere, mice invade both the greenhouse and the pantry. They eat what little perpetual spinach has emerged in the pots and tear apart entire bags of rice, flour, sugar, and beans. They gnaw their way into the cardboard canisters of grits and oatmeal and leave droppings all up and down the shelves.

Carol sighs when she finds them, and then drives them out with a broom. She sprinkles the potato flakes all around the edges of the kitchen and greenhouse and lays wooden traps at the bottom of the pantry that Elijah helps her to construct.

Then she goes through the wreckage and sees what she can salvage of the grains. Word spreads through the camp that the food supply is thinning.

"I hope we make it through the winter," Tara tells Rosita as they switch out on watch. "Did you hear about the mice in the pantry?"

[*]

That evening, the Council meets at the kitchen table, where they have the warmth of the wood stove, as smoke billows from the chimneys of the inn. They review the rations and the supplies.

"Javier and Mason say they'll give us eight pounds of mutton," Maggie tells them, "three pounds of bacon, a dozen eggs, and a gallon of milk the next time they come to trade. Five bags of beef jerky, three bags of rice, and two bags of dried apricots. But who knows when they'll be able to get here. And that will only last but a week, protein wise."

"I think we'll have to be near vegetarians for a while," Carol says. "Most of the beans were canned, fortunately, and we have the peanut butter still. So we can get protein from that."

"Bit of meat still in the smoke house," Daryl mutters. "Try n' get more."

Elijah ventures into the kitchen during the Council meeting saying, "Excuse me?"

"Yes?" Maggie asks him.

"I…uh…I wanted to raise an issue with the Council?"

"Go ahead," Rick tells him.

"I know it's really cold, but I think we have to worry about smoke poisoning. We've been burning almost all the wood fireplaces almost all day. I was reading in my medical books…well, I just…I think maybe we need to scale back on that. To prevent long term damage to our lungs. Maybe only light the fireplace in  _one_  common room. And limit them to a few hours at night?"

"Thank you for raising that," Maggie tells him. "We'll discuss it tonight."

Elijah nods and shuffles from the kitchen.

The Council enacts restrictions on the number of hours each fireplace can be burned each day.

"It's probably for the best," Ezekiel says. "We've used up over half the existing woodpile. And it's too cold for Jerry and I to chop for long."

[*]

Carol gets out of bed to dampen the flames of the fire and then slides back under the three layers of linens - sheet, wool blanket, and thick quilt. She sneaks her cold feet beneath the ankle of Daryl's sweatpants and he jerks away.

"Warm me up," she orders.

He slides back a little. "Gimme a foot."

She slides back and raises her foot to him. He rubs it between her two hands, and then does the same to the other. When her feet aren't so frigid anymore, she rolls over and slides back against him in a spooned position.

"Can think of somethin' else that'd warm ya up," he murmurs.

"We'd have to take off our clothes. It's too cold."

"Nah. Just the bottoms. Slip 'em down a little." He kisses the back of her neck.

"I'm waiting a full week to make sure the pill is effective, remember?" She started taking them two days ago. The stash, even if they set half aside for trade, should last each woman at Hillcrest two years, and Michonne doesn't need them now.

"Still got a couple condoms, though, right?" he asks.

"You know I'm holding those for Enid. In case she asks for him."

"Pfft. Oughtta just give 'em to 'er."

"What? Why?" she rolls over to face him. "Do you know something I don't?"

"Just…when it happens, ain't gonna have time to  _ask_  for 'em, are they?"

"I guess it does often happen in the heat of the moment the first time. It's not always premeditated like it was with us."

"Premeditated?" he asks. "Surprised the hell out me when you walked in my tent and took off your shirt."

She laughs. "But  _I_  premeditated it. I had condoms on me. And half of me was terrified you were going to tell me to put my shirt back on and go back to my trailer."

"Hell would I do that for?"

"Well…I didn't know if you liked me like  _that_. I could never quite tell. Anytime I tried to flirt, you'd shut it down."

"Just didn't know how to flirt back. I ain't never had game like Merle."

"Thank God for  _that_. I wouldn't have wanted anything to do with Merle's style of approaching women."

"Always  _got_  women though," Daryl mutters.

"Well, some women respond to that kind of bravado." She puts a hand on his cheek. "Me…I needed to be able to do things on my own terms at first. I was so used to doing them on someone else's terms, that I needed to learn to assert myself. And you let me practice that. You let me take charge. I needed that then. But I'm glad you've learned to assert yourself, too."

"Yeah?" He pulls her close until she's flush against him. "Then I assert I wanna have sex with ya."

She chuckles. "I  _like_  that you assert yourself," she repeats, "but that  _doesn't_  mean you're going to get everything you want every time you do."

He nuzzles her neck. "If it's 'bout the condoms…Could just do mouth stuff."

She draws a way. "I  _do_  like kissing."

"Meant…"

Her lips twitch into a teasing smile.

"Aw, hell, I like kissin', too." He leans in and presses his mouth to hers.

They explore each other's mouths for a long time, in slow sensual kisses with dancing tongues, and then their bodies begin to dance, too, against each other. Pretty soon she's slipping her hand into his sweat pants, and he's moaning against her neck. Later, he returns the favor.

Afterward, Daryl is starting to doze off with Carol's head settled on his chest. He snorts awake when she says, "You should talk to Elijah."

"What?"

"He doesn't have a father to talk to him.  _You_  should talk to him about sex."

"Me? Why  _me_?"

"Because you were a teenage boy once. Please? I really think you should. Will you?"

Sleep is weighing down on him. He closes his eyes. "Mhm. Sure. Whatever ya want."

[*]

The next morning, Daryl knocks on the wall outside of Elijah's room.

"Yeah?" Elijah calls.

Daryl flips the curtain, strides inside, and tosses two condom packets on the coffee table. "Better keep 'em in your pocket."

Elijah's eyes widen and his face flushes.

"Don't be a dumb ass and knock 'er up."

"Uh…"

Daryl walks away, but just as he parts the curtain, he turns. "Damn well better respect 'er."

"Yeh…Yes, sir," Elijah stutters.

Daryl vanishes from the room.


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow this story got all messed up after Chapter 49. One chapter got double posted, some didn’t get posted that I thought got posted…everything is out of whack and probably seemed a little senseless. SO, I’ve deleted everything after Chapter 49, and I am re-posting it. Sorry for any confusion.

Daryl finally successfully tracks an animal the next morning – but it's not a deer. It's a mouse.

He figures out where they've been getting into the inn and seals up the spot. Then he follows the mouse's trail all the way back to the nest at the side of the inn outside the kitchen. He leaves it for now, slip sliding on the ice at the side of the house back to the salted trail. He makes himself a trap to herd them into. When he stirs the nest, he covers his mouth and nose with his scarf to avoid breathing in any particles. Only two mice escape. The rest run right into his trap.

He plunges the entire trap full of mice it into a laundry bucket full of water to drown the creatures. It's brutal, but it would be too painstaking to kill them one by one, and they can't let the pantry raiders live.

"Can we eat them?" Carol asks when he shows her his find.

"Do in some countries. 'Cept usually they's bigger. Ain't gonna be much meat. Lot of bones. Be pickin' the bones out our teeth."

Carol winces. "And what if they're diseased?"

"Be a virus if they was. Heat'll kill it. Just cook 'em real good."

"I don't know…"

"We ain't that precious are we?"

"We aren't that desperate either," she says, and then admits, " _Yet_." She looks the little, dead creatures over. "Seems like a lot of work to clean."

"Can't seem to hunt in this ice and cold. Ain't got nothin' better to do today."

She makes an ugly face.

"Free range," he reasons. "Grain fed."

"On  _our_  grains." She sighs. "Fine. Go ahead and clean them. I'll salt them. And then we'll freeze them in the ice house until we  _are_  that desperate. If we ever get to that point, I'll thaw them out and barbecue them. But we're having the last of the fox meat tonight."

[*]

Dianne pets Bullseye behind his stall as she calls Mason on the radio and asks him, "How do you keep your horses exercised in this weather? I don't want to risk taking him out. It's so icy. He might break a leg. I've just been walking him around the barn in circles."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Mason says. "He needs to conserve energy to fight the cold anyhow."

"That's what I figured."

"You know as much about horses as I do," he replies. "You just want an excuse to talk to me, don't you?"

She can almost hear the smile in his voice. "I grew up in the city," she tells him. "You grew up on a vineyard."

"What city?" he asks.

"Fairfax."

"That's a  _suburb_. And not far from horse country. Don't tell me you just suddenly became a rider after the Epidemic."

"Well, I might have spent summers on my uncle's horse farm in Mananas," she admits. "When I was a girl."

"I can't envision you as a little girl," he says. "Were you serious even then?"

"Deadly. My mother says I drew up a written business plan for my lemonade stand."

He laughs. "I believe it." Then his voice grows serious. "How's your food supply holding up?"

"Not well." She tells him about the mice in the pantry and greehouse, and about overhearing Carol and Daryl discussing eating them, if it comes to that.

"Well, if it comes to that…I'll come out there on foot with a sled dragging real food."

"For seven miles? On a sheet of ice? Up and down hills?" Dianne asks.

"I could sled down the hills," he says.

She laughs. "I'm having trouble envisioning  _you_  on a sled."

"I was on one just the other day. With my youngest nephew. When the snow melted enough for sledding. Before it iced."

"Well I don't see you being able to make that trek without breaking a leg. Though I appreciate the thought. We're stretching the rations. We should make it until the ice melts and you can  _drive_."

"I hope so," he says with a sigh. "This is as cold as I can ever remember it being here. And our chickens aren't laying at all."

"So you can't bring us eggs anyway after all?"

"I doubt it. But we've got jerky. And mutton. We've got other food. We'll work something out. Don't you worry, darlin'."

"Darlin'?" she asks.

"Sorry. I meant…Dianne. They both start with D, you know. Easy to confuse."

Dianne smiles.

[*]

The sound of duct tape peeling off a roll is like nails on a chalkboard to Michonne as she walks into their bedroom. Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones. All sorts of little things have been annoying her lately. Certain scents make her almost sick. "What are you doing?"

"Taping around the windows to keep the room warmer. I've put rolled up-towels along the sill, too."

"I married a smart one," she says as she sits on the bed. "Are you on lock checking duty tonight?"

"No, it's Ezekiel and then Jerry." He plops down on the bed next to her. "But I have watch in thirty minutes."

She puts a hand on his knee. "You've been losing weight."

"Yeah, well." He shrugs.

"You don't have to skip so many of your rations for me."

He puts his hand on her baby bump. "I don't want the baby to be hungry. I want him to grow up big and strong."

She puts a hand over his. "It could be a her."

"Then I still want her to grow up big and strong. Though maybe not  _quite_  so big."

Michonne laughs.

"When can we feel it move?" he asks.

"Maybe in another month."

"Daddy!" Judith cries from behind the curtain of her petitioned alcove. "Wead! Time to wead Wild Thang!"

Rick stands. "I'm going to kill Daryl for giving her that book."

"He didn't. She found it."

"Well he encouraged her obsession by bringing back that stuffed animal," Rick grumbles.

"That's what godfathers are for, Rick."

He slaps apart the curtain, makes a claw of his hand, and growls at Judith.

"Woar!" she yells.

[*]

Enid and Elijah are huddled under a thick blanket on a sleeping bag before the fireplace of the third-floor living room. Elijah's privacy curtain has been pulled shut across the open doorway. Their kisses echo the crackling of the fire as Elijah feels her up under her sweatshirt and over her bra.

Enid pulls away from his lips. "Thirty minutes until curfew," she warns him. That's when the fireplaces have to go out, and when the lock checker will start making the rounds. Which means she needs to be in her own room. "We better make the most of it." She reaches underneath her sweatshirt, unhooks her bra, and yanks it out through one arm.

Elijah looks at her like she's doing a magic trick, and then he grins and slides his hand back under her sweatshirt. Soon she's squirming against him, and then he's rolling her on top of him. They dry hump until she gets off, but he's left frustrated. He usually is, except for that first time in the blood bus, when he was so excited he went off in his pants. At the moment, though, he looks almost as if he's in pain.

"I'm sorry," she says reflexively.

"Could you…uh…could you maybe touch me? Please?"

"I've never done it before," she admits with a sudden flush.

"It's not rocket science. I've done it hundreds of times." When he realizes what he's said, his light brown skin turns a burnt red.

His embarrassment makes her feel less embarrassed. She puts a hand on the tie of his sweatpants. "I could try." She pulls the string loose and slides her hand inside the waistband of his boxers. "Just tell me if I'm not doing it right."

"Oh  _God_. Wow."

[*]

Carol pulls the heavy blue and orange UVA sweatshirt over her head and then changes into a pair of blue and orange fuzzy slipper socks with a V and crossed swords on the toes. Good thing Jesus and Aaron thought to pick up a lot of winter clothes on their final run before the snow-in. She almost misses the snow…at least it wasn't so  _cold_.

Daryl glances at her slipper socks as he sits down on his side of the bed and yanks off his boots.

"Sexy, huh?" she teases.

"Hell. Ya'd be sexy in a paper bag."

She smiles. "See, you  _do_  have game." She swivels under the blankets while he changes into sweat pants and a sweatshirt. His says Virginia Tech, and Carol saw Henry in a William & Mary sweatshirt today. Aaron and Jesus must have raided some kind of general Virginia college apparel gift shop.

Daryl walks over and dampens the flames in the fireplace until there's only an orangey red glow. He climbs into bed next to her, beneath the sheet, wool blanket, and quilt. He crosses his arms behind his head on the pillow.

"Did you talk to Elijah?" Carol asks. "Like I asked you to?"

"Mhmhm."

"What did you say?"

"Said what had to be said."

"And he knows  _how_  to use a condom?"

"Kid's twenty!"

"Yeah, but he was still seventeen when this started. And very much a virgin, according to Enid. He hadn't even kissed a girl."

"Kid did a damn blood transfusion! Think he can manage a  _condom_."

"Fair enough. I'm just being…" She sighs. "Motherly."

"Yeah, well, try motherin' Henry for a while. He's started swearin'."

"Hmm. I wonder where he picked  _that_  up?"

"Rick probably," Daryl says.

She snorts. She rolls over and settles a hand under her cheek. She can still make out his familiar shadow in the dying light from the embers. "How old were  _you_  when you lost your virginity?" She's terribly curious. He's never given her much in the way of details when it comes to his sexual history.

"Hell's that matter for?"

"It doesn't. I just want to know. When we share things about our pasts…I feel closer to you. That's all."

"Oh." He seems to mull that over. "Well…'S damn old. Eighteen."

"That's not  _that_ old, Daryl."

"Was where I grew up," he mutters.

"I was 24," she tells him. "And it was my wedding night. I was taught to wait, so I only went so far with my high school boyfriend. God knows I  _wanted_  to go farther with him. But my father always said, if you put out, you'll attract the wrong kind of guys." She laughs bitterly. "The irony. " She scoots forward and lays her head on his shoulder, and he drops one arm down around her. "Who was she?"

Daryl's muscles go tight beneath her, and she thinks maybe this wasn't the best topic to broach. But to her surprise, he  _does_  answer. "Just some girl. Older'n me. Twenty-somethin'. From 'round the trailer park where Merle and me was living. Heard she liked to drink and liked to fuck. And I wanted to pop my cherry so Merle'd stop makin' fun of me. Didn't give two shits 'bout 'er. Bought 'er a whole bottle of bourbon so she'd let me fuck 'er. Wasn't good. End of story."

"The bourbon or the fucking?" Carol teases and, to her relief, Daryl relaxes a little.

"Hell, the bourbon was fine. Spent a fifth of my week's earnings on it."

Carol chuckles. "What was your job back then?"

"Anything any one'd pay me for. Merle and me…we'd drive 'round in his pick-up, looking at houses, looking for things that needed fixin'. Knock on doors. Say, hey, yer gate's off its hinges. Put that back on for ya for thirty bucks. Or, hey, yer door needs re-painting. Or hey, yer lawn's getting long. Mow that for ya 'fore the HOA sics the dogs on ya. Or hey, yer car's got a chip in the windshield. Can patch that right up for cheap, won't have to screw with the insurance."

"And did you get a lot of work that way?" Carol asks skeptically.

"Enough."

"I think if some random man knocked on my door…"

"Oh, we got the cops called on us a few times. Ain't no law 'gainst it though. 'Cept in this one town where I guess there was. Solicitors s'posed to have a badge. We had to go down to the station. Pay a fine. Half what we earned that week. Fuckin' sucked. Fined us for havin' a taillight busted on the pick-up, too. That was the other half what we earned. Bad week."

"And now you're still making do with scraps," she says.

He rolls on his side and pulls her close. "Nah. 'S different. Got ya. Got this place. Got people all workin' together to make it work. If'n I  _do_  manage to come home with somethin'? Ain't no one here gonna trade it for meth." He rests his forehead against hers. "Richer'n I ever been."

[*]

Ezekiel buttons up his jacket. He needs the extra layer of warmth for lock checking duty, because outside the insulated bedrooms, it's quite cold.

Nabila settles Gracie into the pack n' play to sleep. The girl's been put in their room since they have a fireplace and because Nabila is breast feeding her two to three times a day now. She'd weaned the little tyke down to once at the Hilltop, but with food as scarce as it is…

"Amazing," Ezekiel says, because Gracie rolls right over and goes to sleep.

"She's an easy one," Nabila agrees. "About  _that_ , anyway. You and Aaron need to build her a toddler bed before Michonne's baby is born, so it can have the pack n' play. Besides, she crawls out of it every morning. She tipped it over yesterday."

"I'll get started on it soon." He kisses her forehead. "Sleep well, my beautiful bride." He strokes her hair gently. There's something about seeing her hair that's strangely exciting to him, maybe because she wears that head scarf outside the bedroom and no other man ever gets to see it. He bends to kiss her lips before heading for the door.

"Zeki," she says when his hand is on the knob.

"Yes?"

"No skipping your second ration tomorrow for me. The Council already arranged it so Maggie and I are getting a little more."

"I'm aware. I'm on that Council, my love."

"Then you  _know_  I don't need more from you."

"We'll see," he says as he opens the door. "I just might not be hungry."

[*]

Two minutes to curfew, Elijah walks Enid back to her room, smiling. "Thanks," he says at her door.

She blushes. "Maybe you can do that for me next time?"

"Yeah! Sure."

She laughs at how excited he sounds.

"Hey…uh….just so you know," he says, his coffee brown eyes darting to the hallway floor "…umm….in case…I mean….Daryl gave me condoms."

" _What_? Have you been talking to him about what we've been – "

"- No! I swear. God, no. Why would I?"

"It's probably because he saw us coming out of the blood bus. He probably thought we were about to go all the way. But we're  _not_ , right?"

"Uh…I…guess…not," he says.

"You're okay with that, right?"

"It's all up to you. Of course. I mean…I'm available. For  _whatever_  you want."

"You're so cute." Enid leans forward and kisses his lips. "You're sweet. I love you." It just slips out of her mouth, those words, and her eyes widen. "I didn't mean that!"

"You didn't?" he asks.

"No, I mean…I guess I  _did_  mean it. I just didn't mean to  _say_  it. Yet."

"Why not?" he asks.

She shrugs. "Because you haven't yet."

"Oh. Well…I do. I think."

"You  _think_?"

"I've never been in love," he says. "But I think about being with you almost all the time."

"That could be lust," she says.

"I guess. But not just…you know…I don't just think about making out. I like being with you. Playing checkers or doing laundry or whatever. I just like  _being_  with you."

Enid smiles. "I like being with you, too."

The stairwell creeks. Ezekiel is making his way up, checking locks.

"Goodnight!" Enid opens the door to her bedroom, slams it shut, and locks it. Only when she's in the pitch black does she realize Elijah was the one holding the flashlight. She feels around in the darkness until she finds hers on the night stand and clicks it on long enough to get under the covers.


	51. Chapter 51

Daryl takes a few days off from hunting, after snaring nothing, but the weather still shows no sign of warming, and game in the smokehouse is gradually vanishing. So he ventures out for another attempt. He finds nothing but a few scratches on ice that lead nowhere. He checks Carol's traps, but they're empty. The animals are deep in hiding, waiting out the cold.

He comes home with two fresh bruises, but Carol just tosses him the bruise cream this time. It lands with a plop on the bed.

"Ain't gonna rub it in for me?"

"I  _told_  you not to go out there. You're just expending energy at this point. You're working too hard  _and_  you're skipping rations for others. Please don't be foolish. Conserve your energy. Promise me you won't go out tomorrow?"

"Ain't gonna promise ya shit! 'M grown ass man."

Carol's lips draw into a stern line.

"Sorry," he mutters. "Didn't mean to be an ass 'bout it. But I gotta  _try_ , Carol. Gotta wife to provide for. A goddaughter. Whole damn camp. 'S somethin' I just gotta  _try_  to do."

She nods. "Okay. Just…try not to fall so much." She smiles. "A wife, huh? Not an  _unofficial_  wife?"

"Too damn many words," he mutters. "Let's just call it like it is." He looks at her hesitantly. "Yeah?"

She sits down on the bed next to him and kisses his cheek. "Yeah."

"Wanna ring or somethin'?"

"No. You can just tattoo my name on your arm."

"A'ight…"

"I'm joking."

"Oh. Good. Last time I tried to give someone a tattoo…didn't turn out too good."

"Who did you try to tattoo?" she asks.

"Merle. We's both drunk. He had this friend did tattoos out his trailer. He was drunk too. Passed out during Merle's tattoo, and Merle made me finish it. Wasn't happy with the result when he sobered up."

"Oh, Good Lord. What was it?"

"Name of his girl at the time. Claudine. Big Tony passed out after the A. So I finished it…C-L-A- ** _W_** -D-I-N-E."

Carol laughs.

"Always did flunk my spellin' tests."

"Give me the cream," she tells him, holding out her hand. "I'll rub it in for you."

[*]

When Daryl comes out of the smokehouse, where he's gone to retrieve some crow meat Carol plans to cook with dinner, he almost runs straight into Rosita.

She's holding a squirrel upside down by its tail. "Caught something," she says.

"Ya hunt it?"

"No. I found it stuck with its nose in one of the mice traps by the greenhouse. Got I finished it off. But I don't want to skin it."

"Thanks." He takes it by the tail. "Almost out of meat."

"Really?" she asks. "It's that bad?"

"Got the mice still," he mutters.

[*]

They've taken to cramming into the kitchen for dinner because it's warmer with the wood stove. That means some people are sitting on bar stools out the counter, and two are at the kitchen desk. Halfway through the meal, Carol says, "I think Daryl and I have an announcement to make." She looks at Daryl, who's eyes widen in terror. "Not a speech or anything," she tells him. "Just…an announcement, right?"

Daryl clears his throat. "Uh...yeah. Me and Carol, we's married. She's my wife now."

"Now?" Jerry asks. "I thought she already was."

"I kind of did, too," Tara admits.

"Yeah, I mean, you're in the same room," Henry says.

"'Cept now it's official," Daryl says.

"Well, okay then," Rick says. "I'll be sure to put it down in the record book. You two can sign underneath."

"There's a record book?" Michonne asks.

"I was being sarcastic," Rick replies.

"And yet, maybe we  _should_  start a community record book," Ezekiel suggests. "Marriages. Births."

"Deaths and divorces," Jerry adds cheerfully, and then seems to realize that's not a cheery addition, and his smile fades, and he takes another bite of his food.

[*]

After dinner, Carol, Ezekiel, Aaron, and Jesus, as repositories of memory for the four groups that eventually became one, draw up a record book. In three separate sections, the book now lists all the births, marriages, and deaths that have taken place in all the camps since the Outbreak, and the general season (it's too hard to guess or remember precise months) and year of the event. It's a grim tally of the dead, but at least now their names might be lodged in the memory of the generations to come.

When they're done, Carol and Daryl's marriage is entered in the record book, after Rick and Michonne's and Ezekiel and Nabila's, and one by one the couples sign their names beneath the record, a simple covenant in ink.

"You have surprisingly pretty cursive," Carol tells Daryl.

[*]

The next morning, Carol calls over to Dead End on the radio to check if the chickens have started laying eggs again, or at least that her pretense for calling. She really just wants to hear Mason call her something he called her all those weeks ago when they first met.

"This is Carol Dixon," she says when Mason answers. "Calling to discuss the upcoming trade."

"Pardon?" Mason asks. "To whom did you say I was speaking?"

"Carol  _Dixon_."

"Well hello,  _Mrs. Dixon_ ," he replies. "It's a pleasure to hear your voice."

[*]

That afternoon, Rosita finds Carol and Maggie reviewing the books at the kitchen table, trying to make things stretch again.

"Is it really that bad?" Rosita asks them.

"It's not good," Maggie admits. "The mice did a lot of damage. We haven't caught anything in days. Nothing's growing in the greenhouse. It's too cold."

"We should be able to stretch it until the ice melts and Dead End gets here to trade," Carol says, "but what they can give us will probably only last a little over a week."

"And the crops won't come in until April," Maggie agrees. "The hunting should be better, and Jesus and Aaron can go on another supply run, but things could be tight."

Rosita sits down next to Maggie on the bench. "I think I can help."

"How so?" Carol asks.

"I'm going to marry Javier. When this ice melts, and they come with the food…I'm going to go back to Dead End with him. You'll have one less mouth to feed here. You can re-allot the rations. And once I'm his wife, and I'm on the inside at Dead End…I can probably get even better trade deals for you."

"But is that want you want?" Maggie asks. "Do you  _want_  to marry him?"

"It scares me," Rosita admits. "Marriage. Going to this new world at Dead End whose rules I don't know. Leaving this family here. But I  _do_  know I love him. And I know this will be best for the family."

"You don't have to rush this because of us," Carol says.

"I'm ninety percent sure I would have said yes eventually anyway," Rosita tells her.

"Well…then…." Maggie smiles. "Congratulations?"

[*]

With the radio smuggled into her bedroom, buried beneath two blankets, and the solar power heater on low because it didn't recharge all the way today, Rosita calls into Dead End to tell Javier her decision. Someone she doesn't know answers. "Colton Weatherford speaking."

"This is Rosita Espinosa of Hillcrest. Could I speak to Javier?"

"Oh, sorry, Chiquita, I think he's preoccupied. I don't know where he is. Saw him slip into some woman's bedroom and – "

Rosita's heart plunges and her temper flares like a rocket. As the strange, angry, jealous panic is ping ponging inside her, the radio transmits the sounds of a scuffle - playful slapping and wrestling - an  _oof_! from Colton, and then Javier's voice: "That's just Colton being an ass. I'm standing  _right here_  next to him on watch."

"How old is he?  _Twelve_?"

"Sadly, no. Twenty-eight."

"So, he's Mason's…nephew?"

"Half-brother," Javier answers. "From Amos's second marriage."

"You might want to go somewhere private for this conversation," Rosita tells Javier.

"I can't. Two-man watches in both towers. It's the rule here. What is it, hermosa? Is something wrong?"

"Yes."

"What is it?" he asks anxiously.

"No. I mean yes. Yes. My answer is yes."

"Your answer…." He's clearly still confused.

"Yes. I'll marry you. Whenever you can make it up to Hillcrest, and you bring that food for trade…I'll go back to Dead End with you. As your wife."

He laughs happily. "I thought you wanted more time to decide?"

"Well, I had a few days," she says.

He laughs again. "You won't regret it, Rosita. I'll make you a good esposo. Lo prometo. I wish I could get there tomorrow."

"Me, too. But I don't want you risking your neck."

"The second it begins to melt, hermosa. The second the roads are the least bit drivable – I'll put chains on the tires and I'll be there."

"And you're sure you'll be here by February 20?"

"Pretty sure. Why?" he asks.

"Because that's when we run out of food if we don't catch anything else." There's silence on the other end of the radio. "Javier?"

"Is that the only reason you're saying yes?" he asks quietly.

"No. It's not. I love you, Javier. And I think you'd make a good husband. And it would be nice not to have wait two weeks between sex."

"That  _would_  be nice," Javier replies. "And since we're going to be doing it more often…and you don't want ni **ñ** os yet….maybe you should go on the pill?"

"Is Colton listening to all this?" she asks.

"With a jealous grin," Javier replies.

She sighs. "I'll start the pill. By the time you get here, I should be good to go. But don't think that means you're getting it  _every_  night."

Colton laughs. The laugh quickly peters off when Javier, apparently, smacks him on the shoulder.

"Every other night?" Javier asks hopefully.

"More often, anyway," she says. Rosita's stomach tangles into a nervous knot. She wonders if they'll really accept her at Dead End.

"I can't wait to introduce you to my niece. Maybe you can help knock some sense into her."

"I doubt it. I bet she's as stubborn as you."

He laughs. "You'll like it here, hermosa. You'll like almost everyone. Well, except Colton. He's an ass."

"I'm charming, Rosita," Colton says loudly. "And much better looking than your fiancé here."

"Tell him I doubt that."

"She doubts that," Javier says. "I can't  _wait_  for this ice to melt, hermosa."

"Me either," Rosita says, but her gut is slightly less confident than her words. It tumbles with a mixture of doubt and longing, hope and fear, love and caution. "Me either, mi amor."


	52. Chapter 52

Daryl's not able to catch anything on the hunt for the next few days, and their supply of peanut butter and canned beans has dwindled. The ice, unfortunately, has not. Today, when he checks Carol's traps, one has miraculously snared a red fox. He slits the snarling animal's throat quickly. Then he holds his breath as he cuts it open…

No worms.

"Thank God," he murmurs.

Once it's skinned and butchered, he weighs the salvageable meat on the farm scale they've left outside the smokehouse. "Eight pounds," he tells Maggie when he comes inside the Inn.

"One serving per person per day for two days," she says. "With a little left over."

It's not as much as he'd hoped, but it's something.

[*]

While Carol tenderizes the fox meat on the island counter, Daryl crosses yesterday off the heavy, five-year wall calendar that hangs next to the fridge. Predictably, it has pictures of wine on it, grapes, and birds sitting on fence posts in vineyards. Michonne has used it to circle her guess at a due date, which she's decided is May 29, and Carol uses it to plan meals.

Today is February 13, which they only know because Javier told them the actual date three months ago. Dead End has been keeping time ever since the world collapsed.

Someone – Carol maybe – has drawn a little heart on the 14th. He clicks the cap back on the Sharpie, sets it on the counter, and sneaks up behind Carol where she's seasoning the now tenderized meat with a medley of spices that tickle his nose. He wraps his arms around her from behind. She startles, and then relaxes back into his embrace. He nuzzles her neck, nips it, kisses her cheek, and says, "My wife's cookin' smells damn good."

[*]

The next day, as soon as Carol wakes up in the flickering light of the rising sun, Daryl surprises her with the coyote fur hat from the hide he's been tanning. He's put it in a drawstring sports bag, which he tells her to "unwrap."

She sits up in bed and draws out the hat, a little puzzled before she realizes what it is. "I…I was not expecting a gift from you," she admits as she settles the hat on her head. She gets out of bed and walks over to look in the mirror attached to the vanity. It's…atrocious really. There's no symmetry, the seams are visible, the coyote fur is a wild, frenzied mass and she looks like one of those wild things in Judith's favorite book. "I  _love_  it. It's beautiful."

"Why weren't ya expectin' nothin'?" he asks, sounding offended. "Rick 'n Zeke're both givin' their wives stuff."

"They are?" Carol comes and sits beside him on the foot of the bed.

"Yeah. Think so. Rick found this Polaroid. 'N I saw 'Zeke getting' plastic flowers out the attic."

"Huh. That seems a little low rent for his Royal Highness," Carol muses.

"Seen 'em writin' 'er a poem, too."

"Now  _that's_  the Ezekiel I know."

"Sorry," he mutters, and his perpetual hangnail goes write to his teeth. "I can't write shit."

Carol runs a hand over her hat. "This is so much better, Daryl. Poems can't keep you warm in the cold. And I know a lot of time went into making it."

"Enid helped. Did the sewin' part. I did the tannin' 'n all that."

"You  _really_  like your holidays, don't you?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Truth is…Holidays was always shit when I was growin' up. Merle'd always steal my candy on Halloween. One Thanksgivin' granny got drunk, yelled up a storm at Mama, and threw the whole damn turkey 'cross the table. My daddy'd get drunk and knock over the damn Christmas tree every year. Then he'd blame me and take a belt to me. He and Mamma'd fight on Valentine's about his whorin', and he'd call  _her_  a whore, and she'd throw a glass at him, and he'd slap her. Then make me sweep up the glass she broke." He sighs. "Just…want  _nice_  holidays for a change. 'S all."

Carol smiles gently. Sadness and affections mingle in that smile. "This is going to be a  _nice_  holiday, Daryl. I promise. It already is." She kisses him tenderly. "And as your gift…tonight…when we've locked the bedroom door…you get to be in charge. You can have  _anything_  you want."

His lips twitch into smile that is one-part boyish excitement, and one-part lecherous man.

[*]

Nabila stirs when Gracie crawls out of the toddler bed Ezekiel made her. The little girl, who is now over a year, toddles to her side of the bed, saying, "Bee-lee, bee-lee," but Ezekiel snatches her up. "I've got her. You get some sleep."

Nabila dozes off immediately.

[*]

Michonne awakes to a steaming cup of coffee being set on her nightstand. She drags herself into a sitting position. "Where's Judith?" The curtain that divides the alcove has been pulled open.

"Playing with Henry."

"Is there an  _adult_  watching her?"

"Henry's becoming very responsible. He's twelve now."

Michonne takes a small sip of the warm coffee. "Decaf, right?"

"Half calf. You can have a little caffeine on Valentine's. The midwife said so."

"You actually radioed Dolly to ask?"

"Maybe."

"You know, this isn't the first rodeo for either of us."

He sits down and puts a cloth grocery store bag on the bed. "It's our first  _together_." He points to the bag. "I got you something." She sets down her coffee and pulls out a Polaroid camera. "No way."

"Yes way. It was way back on the top shelf of the second-floor hall closet. And there's an unopened package of film."

Michonne peers in the bag. "I see that."

"There's more film loaded into it. Seven shots left. Ten in the un-opened pack. I had to try it out. It works. We can take photos of the baby when it comes."

Michonne's nose scrunches up as she tries not to cry from the beautiful  _normalcy_  of it all. She looks inside the bag again. "And you got a photo album?" She pulls out the off-white album with gold lettering that says –  _Our Family_.

"I took all the old photos out. There weren't very many. It looked like someone started it and didn't get very far."

She opens it and finds he's adhered a candid polaroid photo of Judith playing with Gracie on the first page. Under that is Henry and Jerry at the checker table, Jerry waving. She turns the page to find another photo of Jesus and Daryl at the pool table, Daryl flicking off the camera. Or maybe he's flicking off Rick. She's not sure which. She laughs. "You  _did_  try it out. And it  _does_  work."

"We'll have to get the whole camp together for a family photo later today."

She turns the page. Carl's letters to her and Rick are in a keepsake pocket there. "You saved them?"

"Yeah. First thing I grabbed from the fire after Judith."

She runs her fingertips lightly over one of the pages of Carl's letters. "It's a really beautiful gift." A single tear escapes her eye and weaves a light path down her cheek. Rick wraps and arm around her and kisses it away.

[*]

Nabila awakes to find the bedroom empty. There's a plastic flower on top of a sheet of notebook paper on the pillow beside her.

She sits up in bed and has just started reading the poem when Ezekiel comes into the room. "You're awake?"

"Where's Gracie?" she asks.

"With Aaron and Jesus. Do you like the poem?"

"I'm not finished," she tells him. As she reads, she fights back the mounting urge to laugh. It's a heartfelt poem, romantic, and…completely over the top. She keeps the laughter down, but she feels like her smile must be consuming her entire face. She folds it up carefully.

"Did you like it?" he asks again.

"Well of  _course_  I did, Zeki. You see how much it's made me smile."

[*]

"How did we get stuck babysitting the kids while everyone else is celebrating Valentine's Day?" Aaron asks Jesus as he bends with Gracie in his lap to pick up the books she's dropped on the library floor. He gives it back to her.

"Well, it's not like you got me anything," Jesus mutters.

"You didn't get  _me_  anything either."

"Because I don't like pre-packaged holidays," Jesus insists. "I like  _surprises_."

"Then what are you complaining about?" Aaron asks.

"I'm  _not_  complaining." Jesus drums his fingertips on the mantle of the fireplace. "I can wait until this ice melts and we can get out of here and go on a supply run."

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you if you ever retire."

Jesus laughs. "Am I that restless?"

"Lately. Hey, you think we should go check out Croatan Beach? Make sure all those women are safe."

"Are you insane?"

"Just  _think_  about it. It could be a scouting mission. We're both good at watching people from afar without being seen. And if there is still a group of bad guys there…" He shrugs. "Well, at least we'll know how big a camp they have."

[*]

Dianne has recently returned from a very slippery hunt during which she lost an arrow but gained a crow when Tara calls down from the watch stand - "The radio's for you!" She waves it.

Dianne scales the ladder to get the radio and, when she's at the bottom again, says, "Hello?"

Mason's familiar drawl comes through - "Will you be my Valentine?"

She heads for the semi-privacy and warmth of the Inn, her feet numb from the hunt and her fingers starting to burn. "What does that even mean?"

"It means you talk to me for a spell. I'm bored. Work's been cut in half around here, given that the ice keeps us from doing much."

She opens the door of the Inn and shuts it and heads toward the library, which is empty now except for Aaron, who is about to dampen the fire. "Leave it, please," she asks him, and he nods and walks away.

"I'm sorry?" Mason says.

"Not you. I'm warming up by the fire." She sets the radio down and strips off her boots and gloves and waves her hands before the flames.

"Well that's a delightful diversion to imagine."

She shakes her head, takes the radio, sits down cross-legged in front of the fire, and says, "Hardly. I bet my toes are blue. But I got a crow."

"Are things that bad?"

"They aren't good," she admits.

"Juanita says the weather will warm tomorrow. She can feel it in her bones. be there with food in three days at the outset. One way or the other. I promise you that."

[*]

Carol's hat may be a bit wild and misshapen, but she wears it all morning with pride.

That afternoon, however, when Daryl is attempting yet again to hunt and Enid has vanished somewhere, she goes to her bedroom, pulls out some of the stitching, and secretly redoes it.


	53. Chapter 53

"Don't peek! Don't peek!" Elijah says.

"I can't," Enid replies. "Your hand is over my eyes."

He walks her into his living-room bedroom, and as the curtain falls shut behind them, he takes his hand away. "Happy Valentine's Day!"

Three red, plastic roses rest in a vase at the center of the table. There's a handmade card on one side, next to an empty crystal wine glass, and another wine glass and a bottle of vodka on the other side. She sits down on the floor and reads her card as he sits down across from her.

_Dear Enid,_

_I don't just think I love you. I'm pretty sure I do. You're the best girlfriend I ever had. Well, okay, the only one. But even if I'd had 1000 girlfriends, I'm sure you'd be the best. You're just that great._

_Love,_

_Elijah_

She tries not to laugh. "It's so sweet," she says. She eyes the peach vodka. "Where'd you get the booze?"

"Daryl and Carol traded it to me, remember?" He pours them each a little. "When we went our separate ways. Before I found Maggie and came looking for you."

It's strange to think it was just a few months ago when they met and parted and then met again.

"I still have most of it," Elijah says. "I'll share with everyone, of course…if things get bad."

"I don't think we can live on vodka."

"Well, it's made from potatoes."

She laughs, takes the glass, sips, and makes a face. Then she makes herself take another sip before setting it down. "Thank you. I wasn't expecting anything for Valentine's Day."

"Uh…you  _told_  me I better get you something."

"I was just  _joking_. But I love all this. I feel terrible, though. I didn't get you anything."

"That's fine," Elijah says as he lifts his glass. "It's not really a day for guys." He sips.

"Well, I could always give you a blow job."

He chokes on the vodka and almost spits it out before swallowing it down. "Are you  _serious_?"

She shrugs. "Well, I mean…I could try? I don't know how." She rolls her eyes. "I know, it's not rocket science. You've done it a hundred times."

"Uh..no. Never."

She laughs. "Oh yeah. I guess you'd have to be pretty flexible."

He smiles. "Are you drunk  _already_?"

"No. Just stupid."

"You're smart."

"I mean it," she says. "If you want one…I can try."

" _If_  I want? You think that's a question?"

"What if I suck, though?" she asks.

Both his cheeks dimple. "That's what you're  _supposed_  to do."

"You know what I mean!"

"I'm sure you won't be bad at it. And even if you are, I don't think I'll know."

She snorts. "God, you're cute."

"So…?"

"Let me just have some more of this first." She drains all of the vodka he poured into her glass, and then says, "Come over here."

[*]

Rosita is on watch, feeling envious of everyone enjoying their Valentine celebrations, when Javier's voice comes through the radio. She removes her gloved hand from her pocket and unclips the radio before bringing it to her mouth. "Hello, handsome."

"Happy Valentine's Day, hermosa."

She smiles. "Did you get me anything?"

"Well, I told Amos how useful you are, all the things you can do. Reloading. Explosives. Watch. Changing oil. I talked him into letting me bring your people a bride price, in addition to all the trade food we'll bring for the gunpowder."

"Really?" she asks. "So you're  _buying_  me now, are you?"

"Of course not. You're beyond price."

She chuckles. "Nice attempt at a save." She looks out over the frozen fields to the dark outline of the barren trees. "So what is this bride price?"

"Maggie knows how to milk animals, right?"

"Yeah. She grew up on a farm."

"Good, because you Hillcresters are getting a female goat," he tells her. "She has a precocious udder."

"A  _what_?"

"She gives milk even without having kids. Three to six gallons a week, the low end in cold weather. Your people will have a continuous, fresh supply."

"That's great! Although…Honestly, I think I'm worth  _two_  goats."

"You're worth a thousand goats to me, hermosa. But Amos believes he's being extremely generous. We aren't milking the sheep at all right now. Some of the goats are resting. She's one of only three animals that is giving us milk right now."

"I'm grateful," Rosita assures him. "Thanks for haggling for me with him. It will help my people a lot."

"Also…Amos said we can't lend you an incubator like we planned. We only have two and one broke. Even Garrett couldn't fix it." She doesn't ask who Garrett is. "But in mid-May, we'll bring Hillcrest three young hens. By mid-June, they'll lay eggs for your people."

"Don't they need a rooster for that?"

He laughs. "No. Only if they're going to be fertilized."

"Don't laugh. I'm not a farm girl," she tells him.

"Listen, we have to marry when I come to trade, before I can take you back to Dead End. It's important to Amos, that you're legally my family before you enter the gates."

"There is no law in this world," she says.

"There is at Dead End. So do you want gold bands, or silver?"

"I suppose it depends where the bands come from. Did you cut them off a walker?" That's what she heard Glenn did, and the idea creeped her out.

"The gold ones would be from Mason and his late wife. The silver would be from Juanita. The old abuela I told you about? Her husband died a year before the Epidemic. She's kept the rings on a necklace."

"Wow. And they're both just willing to give them up?"

"They're both happy for me, hermosa. Both happy to see life and love press on."

"It doesn't matter to me," she says. "Which would you prefer?"

"Juanita was married for forty-seven years. I think that's a good omen."

Rosita has also heard a rumor that Mason's wife cheated on him and that Carson isn't biologically his. "I'd like the silver."

[*]

People are shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen table for dinner, but the barstools where Enid and Elijah usually sit are vacant. The young lovers hustle in to dinner late, after everyone has already started eating. They're giggling and a little tipsy, and Enid has a bit of trouble getting onto the stool.

"If I were your mother," Michonne says, "You two would be in a world of trouble right now."

Henry looks from face to face, clearly not sure why Elijah and Enid would be in trouble.

"Like you never did the same thing when you were their age," Rick tells her.

"I didn't. I was the  _perfect_  daughter." Michonne shrugs. "Except that one time I snuck out, stole my daddy's new Camaro, and totaled it by driving it into a water fountain."

The whole table laughs.

[*]

"'Nything at all?" Daryl asks.

"Well…within reason," Carol replies. "I'm not a gymnast." She's willing to make the offer in part because she trusts his desires are fairly simple. They aren't using condoms anymore, which gives them greater flexibility and spontaneity.

"Hmmm…." He seems to be considering his options. In the end, he just says, "Want ya on the bear skin rug. In that little black one ya wore at Christmas. With all them little ties."

Daryl "unwraps" her slowly before the fiercely burning fireplace. His fingers explore each spot of bare skin as its revealed, and his lips and tongue follow. She's squirming by the time she's completely naked. Still, he keeps torturing her with kisses and caresses for a while before pulling away. "Yer turn."

Carol reaches out to begin undressing him – his shirt is off, but he still has his pants on – so she can touch him as he was touching her, but he says, "Nah. Mean…Yer turn to touch yerself. Wanna watch."

Carol flushes, and it's not from the heat of the fire. "Could I maybe have a blindfold?" Maybe if she doesn't see him watching her, she won't feel so self-conscious.

His eyes darken. He seems to like that idea even more. He stands and grabs a red silk tie from an untouched suit that hangs in the bedroom closet and returns to tie it around her eyes. She can only make out shadows and light.

Carol senses him lying down on his side beside her, his elbow likely on the rug and his head propped up on his hand so he can see.

She can't see him, but she can hear him as she begins to fondle her own breasts – his breath growing deeper, and his voice smoky as he offers the occasional encouragement – "That's m'girl…" "Yeah…." "Pinch it…" "Mhmmm.." "That's a good girl…" "Make yerself feel good, Carol."

She's lost in the pleasure she's giving herself when she hears the snap of his pants popping loose. "Keep goin'," he tells her, his voice hoarser than usual. "'Tween yer legs, now."

She slides one hand down from her breast as she lets her legs fall open.

"Play with yerself," he commands. "Make yerself good 'n wet."

She does.

"So damn beautiful….Feels good?"

Carol chews on her bottom lip and whimpers.

"Mhmmm…." Daryl grows quiet. Except for the low, hoarse sound of his breathing, she wouldn't know he was there. Except the rasp of his zipper, when he lowers it, seems louder than the crackling of the fireplace. "Keep goin'," he tells her. "'S good."

Carol gives into the pleasure she's giving herself. She's almost brought herself to climax when his hand seizes hers, and he yanks her fingers away. She whimpers at the sudden loss of sensation, and gasps in surprise when he flips her onto her stomach. Daryl lifts her slightly up onto her knees and plunges into her from behind with a strangled groan.

She braces herself with her hands flat on the bear skin rug as the orgasm rips through her on his first stroke. She tightens all around him and he moans and stills, waiting for her pleasure to finish ripping through her, before he seizes her by the hips and thrusts and grunts his way to his own explosive end. All sorts of words spew out of him while he takes her, ending with the sharp shout of her name.

He slides off of her, thuds onto his back, and pulls her over and half on top of him. Together, a sweaty, tangled mass of limbs on the bear skin rug, they catch their breath.

Daryl grabs the silk tie at the back of her head and yanks it loose. She blinks him into view. He licks his lips, catches one last breath, and asks, "That fire feel too hot to ya?"

"It does  _now_."


	54. Chapter 54

The next day, the temperature rises above 30 degrees for the first time in weeks. The day after that, it hits 35. The sun shines brightly. The ice begins to melt.

Michonne orders everyone onto the salted, now slushy porch for a group photo.

"But you won't be in it," Jerry says.

"It's for me. I don't need to be in it."

There's a lot of moving around and repositioning until Daryl, who is holding Judith on his hip so she can be seen above the rail, mutters, "Hell is this gonna be over?"

"Smile on three!" Michonne says. "One…"

"Unca D smiles!" Judith orders and half turns in his arms.

"Two…"

The little girl reaches out and puts a finger at each of the corners of Daryl's lips and pushes them up.

"Three!"

_Snap._

[*]

"It's not looking good," Maggie says that night as she pushes the account book to the center of the kitchen table where the Council is meeting.

"Rosita says Javier is coming tomorrow," Rick tells them, "that he thinks the ice is slushy enough now that he can get here with chains on the tires. He's bringing everything they promised for trade, as well as some extra rice, oatmeal, and peanut butter. And that goat."

"Praise the heavens," Ezekiel says. "Not a moment too soon."

[*]

That evening, there's a light vegetarian dinner with more vegetables than beans. The sun sets in brilliant hues behind the blue ridge of the mountains, and Carol watches it with Daryl, standing on the front porch, bundled up as the ice continues to fade into slush.

His stomach growls, because he gave half his beans to Henry tonight. He wraps an arm around her, and she settles her head on his shoulder.

[*]

"I should be there in forty minutes," Javier tells Rosita early in the morning. "It usually only takes fifteen, but I'll probably slide off the road a few times…"

"Is Mason coming too?" Rosita asks.

"Why do you care?"

"Dianne asked."

Javier laughs. "Did she  _really_? I can't  _wait_  to tell him that…"

[*]

An hour and a half later, Rosita paces the front porch, her boots squishing in the slush. She looks at the radio that sits on the railing. Carol emerges onto the porch, and her breath makes a faint cloud in the air. "No word from Javier?"

"He was supposed to be here to trade an  _hour_  ago," Rosita says. "God, I hope nothing happened to him After I  _asked_  him to risk the roads."

"He's survived an apocalypse. He can survive the slush," Carol assures her.

"Maybe we should go check on them?" Rosita says.

But then the radio crackles. "Hermosa?"

"Are you okay?"

"Our radio died. I didn't notice. We just dug up some batteries from the truck. Sorry for the delay. We got a late start. Then we slipped into a ditch once. Anyway, we're almost there."

"Dianne's on lower watch," Rosita tells him. "She'll let you in."

"Is she indeed?" comes Mason's voice from a slight distance. "She must be anxious to see me."

"In your dreams, old man," Javier replies, and then the radio grows silent again.

[*]

A jacked-up pick-up truck Dianne hasn't seen before pulls to the gate. It's huge, and flood lights run all across the top. There's a cage in the massive cab, with a braying goat inside, and surrounding that, several boxes, three coolers, and bundled up with the hood of his winter coat up over his head - Carson. She can make out Mason and Javier in the front. Dolly, the midwife, is wedged between them. There are three more people she's never met sitting shoulder to shoulder in the backseat.

Mason comes out of the truck to greet her. "When do you get off work?" he asks.

She smiles. "Morgan's on his way down now to relieve me, and then I'll head up. Why?"

"Just thought you might like to go out for a drink." He pats the front pocket of his light brown suede jacket, where he must have single-shot bottles of something. "I swear it won't give me any  _ideas_  if you say yes."

"Hmmm…Well, I'll  _think_  about it." She nods to the truck. "Who are they?"

[*]

The entire Hillcrest Council spills out onto the porch to wait the arrival of the visitors, along with Rosita, who is anxious to see Javier.

Carol watches as the pick-up truck pulls to a stop. Carson vaults out of the bed. Javier, Mason, and Dolly exit next, casually. The other two men and one woman follow more cautiously, their hands on the butts of the handguns holstered at their hips – even the priest.

Carol didn't notice the white collar peeking out of his long, black coat until he got out of the truck. She thinks instantly, with a pang, of Father Gabriel, though this priest looks nothing like him. He's Hispanic, easily six inches taller and fifteen years older, scrawny, and with thick, gray hair.

"Relax," Mason tells them, and they do, or, at least, they take their hands off their guns.

Javier runs up the porch stairs and hugs and kisses Rosita. She laughs at his enthusiasm, and kisses him back, but then she pulls away and gives him a questioning look as she nods to the people now standing on the walkway close to the porch. "That's the priest I told you would marry us," he says. "That and the witnesses makes it legal at Dead End."

Mason gestures to the priest. "This is Father Nicolas. He's been my father's spiritual advisor for twenty years now." Then he points to Dolly. "Y'all know my sister Dolly already."

"I don't," says Tara, who has just walked out onto the porch with Michonne.

"Well I'm Dolly," Dolly says. "It's nice to meet you – "

"- Tara," Tara says.

"And this is my sister Henrietta," Mason continues.

Henrietta looks nothing like Mason. She's a good twenty years younger, probably in her early thirties. Her long, dark hair is contained in a pony tail, and her skin is the color of gingerbread. Her eyes are fierce and dark, but when she smiles and says, "Hello." and lets loose a little wave of her hand, her features are transformed into something sweet and light.

"And my brother Colton."

Colton has a similar skin tone as Henrietta's. His eyes are a striking, swirled burst of browns, yellows, and grays. His almost-black hair is cut short but surrounds his head in thick, unruly curls. He can't be more than thirty. Carol supposes these must be Mason's half-siblings, and their mother was likely dark-skinned, which surprises her because she'd built up in her mind an image of Amos as a prejudiced man, though she really didn't know him at all.

"They've come to serves as witnesses to the wedding," Mason explains. "Three witnesses from our Council are required to sign off on any legal marriage."

"You have a Council?" Carol asks. She thought Amos was the sole, patriarchal ruler of Dead End.

"A family council, with my father at its head," Mason answers. "Henrietta here is on it. Colton, too. Dolly, and my brother Garrett, who's back at Dead End."

"But not  _you_?" Carol asks in surprise. She thought Mason had more power at Dead End.

"Pa wasn't too keen on Mason joining the Council," Colton says. "Since they were estranged before he came back." Colton looks at all the people on the porch. "Why don't you introduce them all, Mason?"

Mason points to Rosita first. "That's Ms. Rosita Espinosa."

"I think we all guessed," Colton says.

"And these are the Hillcrest Council members." Mason points as he introduces them. "Daryl Dixon. Mrs. Carol Dixon." Carol warms a little at the name, and Daryl glances at her sheepishly. "Rick Grimes. Ezekiel - I haven't caught your last name."

"Washington."

"How very boring," Mason says. "And Ms. Maggie Rhee."

"M-I-S-S or M-R-S?" Colton asks with a wiggle of his eyebrow. His eyes flit up and down her form.

Maggie gives him such a stern look that he actually moves backward a step.

"And that's Mrs. Michonne Grimes," Mason continues. "Tara. And…" He smiles as Dianne approaches from the walkway. She mounts the stairs and joins the Hillcresters. "Dianne."

"I guess I could see why you might like her," Colton says. "I bet when she actually lets her hair down -"

" _Colton!_ " Mason hisses sharply.

"What?" Colton asks. "I mean…wow!" His eyes flit from Rosita to Carol to Michonne to Maggie to Tara to Dianne and back again. "You've been holding out on me! You didn't tell me the B&B had become the Playboy Mansion."

"Colton!" Dolly scolds him.

Colton chuckles.

[*]

The wedding takes place on the stone walkway so everyone can crowd around on the porch to watch. It's an abbreviated liturgy that Father Nicolas flies through like he's trying to get everyone out of church in time for Sunday football. There's an exchange of rings – Rosita's is a bit too big.

"Don't worry," Colton tells her. "We'll fatten you up at Dead End. Either that or Javier will knock you up. Either way, it'll fit better soon."

There's some kind of hand-written certificate that the priest and the three Council members have to sign.

The Dead Enders leave the Hillcresters a lot of food, not to mention the goat, before Javier prepares to take his bride home to Dead End. Mason is remaining behind, after wheedling an invitation to dinner and to stay the night, and Colton promises to come by and pick him up in the morning, "Now that I know where the place is." He looks at Tara and smiles. "And what lovely ladies are in it."

"I'm gay," she says.

"And I'm married," he replies. "Doesn't mean I don't enjoy gorgeous vistas."

"You're  _married_?" Tara asks in disbelief.

"Sure. Ten years. Got married straight out of high school. Got us a nine-year-old boy. Lost the girl in the Epidemic."

[*]

The wedding over, Carson and Elijah disappear to work on their gadgets, this time in the garage, since it's not quite as cold as it has been. They plug Enid's portable space heater into a power pack to keep things a little warmer, and they heft their projects onto the workbench.

"I can't wait to test the planter in the spring," Elijah says as he grabs a screwdriver from the cork board on the wall. "How are things coming along with your cousins?"

"They  _aren't_  my cousins!" Carson insists.

He begins to unscrew the battery compartment. "So how are things coming along?"

"Well…I think Elizabeth likes me."

"Which one is she?" Elijah asks. "The average average one?"

"No, even better. The  _smart_  average one. But my Uncle Garrett is pretty protective of her. Not my  _biological_  uncle. Just…I still call him uncle. Whenever I come over to their place – they live in the guest house – to have lunch with her or play Scrabble or whatever, he's cleaning his guns.  _Every_  time."

Elijah laughs. He takes out the dead batteries. "You kiss her yet?"

"Once. When Garrett went outside to check on some gunshots. It was just the watch shooting a walker. But I seized my chance. And it was kind of…tame. She's never had a boyfriend."

"She's the one who's 17?"

"19. Just…never had a boyfriend. And then the world ended." Carson tinkers for awhile and says. "This is courtship."

"What?" Elijah asks.

"It's courtship. It's not dating. We don't live in the 21st century anymore, you know. In a month or two…I'm going to ask her to marry me. And she'll probably say yes, because…who else is there? Santiago married Javier's niece already. There's a couple of single field hands, but they're way too old – late thirties. It's either me or Dante, and Dante's kind of…unreliable."

"You don't have to get married," Elijah inserts fresh batteries into his machine.

"That's like saying I don't have to have sex.  _Ever_. In my entire life. No insult intended to Father Nicolas, but that's insane. Also…" He shrugs. "She's smart. So she's interesting to talk to. Evenings around the fire won't be bad. Honestly, I wouldn't have done better in the old world."

"But you don't love her?" Elijah screws the battery compartment back into place.

"I will eventually," Carson insists. "So when are you going to propose to Enid?"

Elijah startles, and the screwdriver slips from his hand, scratches across the battery compartment, and thuds to the floor.

[*]

"Did you ever have goats on your farm?" Mason asks Maggie as she examines the goat in the barn. It will be housed in the free stall next to Bullseye, when it's not grazing.

"No, but I milked plenty of cows." Maggie crouches down on one knee – the one that has her prosthetic foot, because she can't stand on it alone, and examines the udder of the goat to make sure there's no sign of mastitis.

"Well, goat's milk is better. More vitamins. But you don't get nearly as much out of them."

"Twice a day you milk them?" she asks.

"Yes, ma'am."

"What's her name?"

"Daisy." He turns because Dianne has just walked into the barn. He tips his cowboy hat to her.

"I was just coming to give Bullseye some exercise," she tells him. "It's finally safe enough, I think, for a slow ride."

"A slow ride is often more enjoyable than a fast one, I find."

She smiles. "Would you like to join me?"

"Well let me check my social calendar." Mason unzips his suede jacket and pulls out a tiny notebook from the front pocket of his blue canvass shirt. He flips a page over. "It seems I'm currently free."

Dianne laughs and begins to saddle the horse.


	55. Chapter 55

The gates to Dead End swing open, and the pick-up rolls inside, squishing through slush on a windy dirt road to the garage, past the smattering of tress that obscures the view from the roadway. Rosita's eyes drink in the scene with an awe that just keeps growing. When they slide out of the truck, Dolly, Colton, and Father Nicolas go their separate ways, while Javier takes Rosita on a tour of the estate.

Dead End has a huge barn full of sheep, goats, and chickens that are staying warm for the winter, and another smaller barn with four horses and a cage full of bunnies.

"New litter," Javier explains. "We're raising them for meat. Not big enough to eat yet."

He shows her the greenhouse, which is three times the size of the one at Hillcrest, and actually has things growing in it – more than just perpetual spinach. "How – "

"- Solar heaters," he says. "Carson rigged them up on a timer."

They pass a smokehouse that is twice the size of the one at Dead End, an ice house that is about the same size, and then a solar bay. "How much power do you generate?" she asks.

"Enough to recharge thirty portable battery packs each week."

"And how many battery packs do you  _have_?"

"Forty," he answers.

"Then why did you ever want to trade us for one?"

"We have more than forty people," he answers. "And you needed fresh food."

The fields are vast, carefully fenced-in, and well irrigated. There's a small orchard of dwarf fruit trees – mostly apple, but also pear, peach, and plum. They pass a well. In the distance, she can see a gristmill on the edge of the stream that lines the border of the forest, its large water wheel not turning at the moment, probably because of ice or slush. "You make your own flour?"

"We just started to this past fall. And cornmeal."

They near a small guest house, a quaint stone cottage with tempeled roof and smoke pumping from the chimnery. It looks like something out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. Javier knocks on the door and introduces her to the old lady who answers: "This is Juanita. She's the one who gave us the rings."

Juanita makes them sit down to tea in a living room cluttered with children's toys. The cottage has a small kitchen, a breakfast nook, and what looks to be three bedrooms, though one door is closed. "Juanita lives here with her daughter and son-in-law," Javier explains to Rosita, "who have both worked at Dead End loyally for twenty years now. They're probably working now. They have four children, ages two to ten. Dolly delivered them all." He turns to Juanita and asks loudly, "Where are the children?"

Juanita cups a hand around her left ear, and he repeats his question, in Spanish this time.

"Naps," she answers in Spanish, pointing to the closed bedroom door. "It's nap time." Juanita pats Rosita's hand and leans close to her. She tells her, in Spanish, "You take good care of him. He's a keeper that one."

Rosita smiles. "I think maybe he is."

It's a while before they can extract themselves from Juanita's tea time and continue the tour.

[*]

Two red and blue coolers containing mutton, bacon, butter, eggs, and cheese now line the wall of the kitchen. Daryl pulls a canister out of one of the three large cardboard boxes of food Dead End brought them. "Cows? Cows?" he asks. "18 servings."

"What?" Carol poises her pen over the inventory book. "Spell it."

"C-o-u-s-c -"

She laughs, he turns an angry red, and she swallows the laugh. "It's couscous. Put it with the grains."

"Hell's coo coos? Some pretentious shit only rich people eat?"

"I assure you plenty of poor people throughout the world eat it. It's good. You'll like it."

"'Course I'll like it. You'll be the one cookin' it."

Carol smiles at the gruff compliment.

He pulls out a canister. "Grits.  _Now_  we're talking." He looks at the label. "32 servings."

He pulls out a mason jar. "Dead End's pickled onions. Looks like six servings."

"Does it seem strange to you that Mason's not on the Council at Dead End?" Carol asks.

"Nope."

"I knew he wasn't  _the_  leader," Carol muses, "but I thought he was  _in line_  to be, when Amos died."

"Mason's like me. He either follows, or he does his own damn thing. Ain't a leader."

"You're a leader, Daryl," she insists.

He puts the jar of pickled onions on the vegetable shelf and pulls out another jar. "Three bean salad. Dead End's homemade. Six servings maybe."

"You don't think you're a leader?" she asks. "You're on the Council."

"Not at the Hilltop. Wasn't 'til we got here."

"You were way back at the prison, though," she reminds him. "And you led all those people from the sewers of Alexandria to the Hilltop."

He shrugs. "Not sayin' I can't lead when I have to. Or I don't got  _ideas_. Just…I ain't ever wanted the kind of responsibility Rick took on his shoulders. The kind Ezekiel took on in the Kingdom. King Maggie did at Hilltop. Kind Amos is doin' at Dead End. You always wanted me in charge," he says. "All the way back to when Hershel's farm burned down."

She'd told him then that she wanted a man of honor in charge, looking at him pointedly, and he'd told her Rick  _had_  honor. "Do you feel like I push you too hard?" she asks.

"Nah. 'S not that. 'Preciate your confidence in me, Carol, I do. But I ain't that man. Ain't never been. I  _got_  my role. It  _means_  somethin'."

"You've done a lot for the group," she agrees.

" 'S enough for me. 'S enough for Mason, too."

"Maybe you understand him better than I do."

He pulls out four cans of tuna. "Tuna. Expired six months." He rolls his eyes up as he calculates. "9.6 servings." He takes a glass milk bottle out of the box next, except it's got something murky purple-black in it. "Grape juice I reckon. Dead End's personal label. One pint."

"That leaves a question," she says.

"Well, sip it 'fore you give it to the kids, though. 'N case it's wine."

"No, I mean, a question about Dead End's leadership. When Amos dies…if Mason doesn't take over…who will?"

"One of his kids, probably."

"Someone  _favorable_  to us?"

He looks up from the juice like he's just realized what she's implying.

"Dolly seems to like us well enough," Carol muses. "She didn't ask for anything for her midwifing services."

"Can't believe they'd give it to that Colton kid," Daryl says.

"I certainly hope not. He doesn't seem capable. What did you think of Henrietta?"

"Dunno…didn't get a read on 'er. She didn't say much."

"And Garret wasn't there at all," Carol says. "But he's the oldest son after Mason."

"So let's hope he ain't an asshole like his pa."

"I'm beginning to think maybe Amos isn't as big of an asshole as I imagined," Carol admits. "He's only lost a handful of his people in a single uprising. He's protected his own for three years now, and with far less killing than we've ever done." She sighs and turns a page in her inventory. "But maybe that will change. Maybe we can be settled here, too."

[*]

Not far from the first guest house, there's a second of similar size. Javier walks Rosita up the path. "Garret Weatherford never left the vineyard. He's a winemaker and an excellent handy man. Not bad at fishing, either. He's lived in this house since he got married in his early twenties. He has three daughters now. The oldest is twenty-one and the youngest is seventeen." He pauses in front of the door. "Remember that walker Daryl found in the woods? Cooper?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Garret married Cooper's wife."

"He married his own sister-in-law?"

Javier shrugs. "Why not? In the Bible they were commanded to. Protection for the widows. So she's living here too, of course, along with her son from her first marriage. The cousins are stepsiblings now." He knocks on the door.

A pretty, thirty-something brunette answers. She has big hair and a stupid mile. From within the cottage, a piano suddenly stops playing.

"Candy," Javier says, "I want you to meet my new wife, Rosita."

Candy invites them inside. There's a young boy, maybe four or five, playing by the fireplace, rolling a firetruck up and down the brick surface and raising the ladder to pretend to put the fire out. "That's Cooper and Candy's boy," Javier whispers. "Jackson."

The man at the piano stands and turns.

"Garret," Javier says, "this is my wife Rosita."

Garret comes and shakes Rosita's hand, but doesn't saying anything more than, "Garret Weatherford." He looks about ten years younger than Mason, and ten years older than Candy. His hair is a dirty blonde, and his eyes are a light hazel rather than Mason's solid blue.

"I'll make us some tea," Candy says. "On my hot pot. Hot hot hot! Right, Garret, baby?"

Garret looks almost pained by her excitement.

"We've already had tea, thank you," Javier says. "I just wanted to make the introductions."

"Well, you have to sit a while," she insists. "Girls!" she shouts. "Oh girls! Come on out here and meet Javier's new chaquita!"

Javier rolls his eyes sympathetically to Rosita.

"Have a seat," Candy insists, gesturing to the couch, and they do. Garret sighs and sits down heavily in a leather recliner.

Two older teenage girls emerge from a bedroom. "Where's Carolyn?" Candy asks.

"At the big house," one of the girls answers.

"Well, these are Garret's youngest girls," Candy says, "Elizabeth and Anna."

"Carson's dating Elizabeth," Javier whispers to Rosita.

Elizabeth is a thin, rather flat-chested brunet with hazel eyes like Garret's. Her younger sister looks very similar, but with lighter hair.

"Nice to meet you, Rosita," Elizabeth says. She turns to her father. "Can I go back to reading now?"

Garrett waves his hand and both girls quickly disappear back to the bedroom.

Candy sits down next to Rosita on the couch and proceeds to talk quickly about a long series of mundane things one after another – mostly gossip about people Rosita doesn't know - until Rosita's eyes gloss over.

Garret, without a word, stands from his recliner and returns to the piano bench, where he begins playing.

"Garret's such a good piano player," Candy tells Rosita loudly over his playing. "The older ones all learned from their mother."

"Well, we really need to get going," Javier tells her, standing and tugging Rosita up.

When they escape the house, Rosita issues a sigh of relief. "Odd couple."

"She talks a lot," Javier agrees.

"And Garret doesn't talk at all."

"She's a moron," Javier tells her. "But women are scarce, and I bet the sex is good. A man's willing to put up with a lot for that."

"Is that so?" Rosita asks with a raise of her eyebrow.

"Not me. My standards in women are very, very high."

She chuckles.

[*]

Michonne presses the photo she took of Javier and Rostia's wedding – she snapped it just as Javier was kissing the bride - onto a page of the  _Our Family_  album, underneath the snapshot of all the Hillcresters on the porch. She looks up when Rick sits down on the library couch next to her.

"I better be getting a picture of you with the baby." He stretches an arm across the couch behind her and settles his hand on her shoulder. "I don't want you taking all the photos and not being  _in_  any of them."

Michonne leans her head on his shoulder. "Well, there are still sixteen shots left. I'm going to wait until the baby's born to use anymore."

"Did you and Dolly work out your birth plan before she left?"

Michonne nods. "She was very accommodating."

"She and Tara seemed to make friends. Do you think -

"That Dolly's gay?" Michonne interrupts. "I don't know. Elijah says Carson says she's never been married."

"Who knows," Rick says with a laugh. "Maybe there really  _is_  someone for everyone."

"I  _wish_ ," comes a voice from the foyer. They both look up to see Jerry near the entryway to the library.

"Well maybe someday," Michonne suggests.

"Maybe if we Jesus and Aaron find Oceanside, and they come live here…" Jerry grins.

"Jesus and Aaron are going to look for Oceanside?" Rick asks.

"When the slush is gone and it's warmer. In late March, maybe. I volunteered to go with them." Jerry walks on.

"I think he's had a crush on Cynde for awhile," Michonne says.

"She's  _way_  out of his league," Rick replies.

"And two hundred miles away near Norfolk," Michonne says. "If our guess about Crotatan Beach is right. And  _if_  she's still alive."


	56. Chapter 56

Carol stands back and beholds her fully-stocked pantry. "I think we can get rid of those frozen mice now," she says.

Daryl surrounds her with his arms from behind. She loves it when he does that, and she leans back into his embrace before resting her arms over his.

He breathes in her scent. "Oregano?"

She smiles. "You're getting good at this guessing game. I used it to season the mutton. I'm going to slow roast it the rest of the day."

"Can't wait to eat it." He kisses that bare spot right at the edge of her neck, in that way of his that always makes her a little tingly.

When she squirms in pleasure, he asks, "Wanna fool a'round?"

She ducks out of his arms. "I'll be up in fifteen minutes. I have to finish up a few things." She puts a hand on his cheek and runs a thumb across the bristles of his scruffy goatee. "Maybe you could trim that up a little while you're waiting for me. Make it a bit softer."

His lips twitch. "Why? Expectin' a trip downtown?"

"We'll see." She kisses him and turns back to the pantry.

[*]

As Javier and Rosita near the main house, there are two gunshots. Rosita ducks instinctively and jerks her handgun from its holster.

"Relax. Just the watch killing a couple of lurchers. They come out of the woods sometimes."

"Lurchers? Is that what you call them?" she asks as she reholsters her gun. She'll have to master the vocabulary of this place. It's  _lurchers_ , not walkers,  _Epidemic_ , not Outbreak. "We rarely get two walkers – lurchers - a day let alone two at once."

"Hillcrest is higher up and doesn't have the scent of as many animals. But we don't get too many either."

They walk through a courtyard with an outdoor fireplace, as well as an outdoor kitchen covered by a ventilated wood awning. Beyond that, there's a long, clear plastic dining tent stocked with enough tables and chairs for at least fifty people, but the chairs have been put up on the tables. "We don't use the dining hall in winter," Javier explains. "We use it for Sunday dinner in fair weather, and for other special occasions. Otherwise, people usually eat where they are."

Five bundled-up children run and play in the slush outside the tent. They wave to Javier, and he waves back. Javier points to the boy with curly black hair and mocha skin. "That's Colton Weatherford's son Grayson. He's nine." He points to a darker boy. "That's Henrietta Weatherford's boy Marcus. He's six." Then he points to a tow-headed girl. "That's Shannon. She's ten. And her younger brothers, Daniel and Joseph. Their Amos's  _great_ -grandchildren. Their parents died in the Epidemic. So did their grandmother, Amos's oldest daughter."

"You know there's no way I'm going to remember  _any_  of this, right?" Rosita asks.

Javier smiles and points to the main house. "That's where most of the Weatherfords stay. All these kids." He waves to the five kids again. "Amos. Dolly. Henrietta and her husband Eddie. Colton and his wife Nicole."

"And Mason and Carson?" Rosita asks.

"No. They share a room in the servant's quarters."

Rosita looks over the Weatherford family home. Three brick steps lead up to the French door on a covered porch that spills out into a gazebo on the left-hand side. Bare ivy crawls up the brick on the second story above the roof of the porch. A third-story tower, which appears to house a bedroom suite, looms higher than the rest of the house, and features a semi-circular walk-out balcony. Two chimneys rise from the Victorian-style roof and emit gray clouds of smoke. Solar panels line the roof and add a modern touch to the old-fashioned veneer. "Does it have electricity?" The guest cottages did not appear to, other than through portable battery power packs with outlets.

"Sometimes," Javier answers. "The solar panels don't generate enough regular power. There are routine brownouts, even with limited use. But they have plenty of flashlight lanterns and portable heaters and battery packs and such. You'll see inside the place tonight when we come to dinner."

"We're eating in the big house?"

"I always sit at Amos's table. And he wants to meet you, of course."

Rosita feels a flutter of nervousness at the thought. When they first came to Dead End, Rick went alone to investigate the road while the rest of them hovered armed on the highway. She's never even  _seen_  the fabled crotchety Amos.

One side of the front door of the big house bursts open and slams shut. Colton comes running down the stairs and toward the dining tent where the kids are playing. He shouts, "Slush war!" and scoops up some muddy slush.

"Slush war!" his son Grayson yells back, and the boy Marcus cries, "Get Uncle Colton!"

All of the kids run slipping and sliding across the yard, flinging wet globs of muddy slush.

"Help!" Colton cries to Javier.

"You're on your own, hombre!" Javier calls back as the kids drag Colton to the ground.

Laughing, Javier takes Rosita's hand and tugs her on.

[*]

Mason helps Dianne off the horse and ties the reins to the staircase of the gazebo that rests at the end of the dirt path through the woods, a half a mile past the green house.

"Is it time for that drink now?" she asks.

He pats his pocket. "If you wish."

She walks up the stairs to the gazebo. "Depends what you have."

Mason follows with a blanket he takes from a roll on the back of the horse. He clears the slush off of a bench with his hand and then lays the blanket down on the wet surface. Dianne sits, and he sits beside her. "Do you prefer Amaretto, Jack Daniels, or Gin?"

"Jack Daniels."

"I should have guessed," he fishes out the tiny bottle and hands it to her. "I guess I'll have the Gin."

"And what are you going to do with the amaretto?" she asks as she twists off the cap. She shoot the whiskey.

"Sneak it into your coffee tomorrow morning." He unscrews his cap and begins to raise the little bottle to his lips.

"The coffee you're going to bring me in bed?"

Mason drops his bottle, and the gin spills all over his coat.

"I was  _joking_ ," Dianne assures him. "Just to be clear. It wasn't an  _actual_  invitation."

He scurries to pick up the bottle that is now rolling on the slushy floor of the gazebo. "Teasing is unkind."

"I'm sorry. I haven't attempted to flirt since my divorce."

He peers inside the little bottle at the last couple of drops. "And now look what you've done. I'm without refreshment." He extends an arm across the railing of the gazebo behind her shoulders. His jacket gets a bit wet from the slush, but it enables him to face her better. "I guess you're just going to have to make it up to me by sharing some of yours."

She shakes her empty bottle. "And how do you propose I do that? It's all gone."

"I'd settle for a kiss. Just to get a taste of that Jack Daniels, you understand. I'm sure there's still some on your lips."

She taps the neck of the tiny booze bottle against her lips and smiles. She lowers the bottle and says, "Fair enough."

Mason's blue eyes twinkle as he leans in.

[*]

Just beyond the house, Javier and Rosita pass a small chapel, and not much farther a long, a winery building. He takes her inside and shows her where they still make some wine. But mostly, it's a giant walk-in wine cellar and pantry now. She marvels at the bottles and bottles of wine, but also at all the other food stored there – shelves and shelves of it, some clearly from grocery stores, and some their own canned and jarred produce.

He must see the awe in her eyes, because he says, "Amos sent his sons and field hands to loot often and loot early."

"There's so much."

"He took in all the surviving field hands and their families. There's a lot of food, but there's a lot of mouths to feed, and he's always planned for the worse. Amos is an ant."

Rosita shakes her head. "You weren't quite as generous with us as I thought you were."

"None of those trades was even," he says defensively. "They were  _all_  in Hillcrest's favor."

She thinks of the Saviors and of the roving gangs of thieves she and Abraham encountered outside Houston. It's not unusual for men to extort or rob others in this world. Even the Hilltop once demanded Alexandria slaughter men in exchange for food. The Dead Enders not only traded peacefully, but they gave far more than they got in exchange. So what if they're prosperous? "I guess it's just straight up envy," she admits.

"Nothing to envy, hermosa. You're one of  _us_  now."

She is. And that means she can probably get her people even more of this food.

_Her_  people. She's not sure she'll ever think of Dead End as  _her people_ , no matter how much she loves Javier.

The thought causes a strange, unexpected feeling of loneliness to settle in the pit of her stomach.

[*]

Dianne is the first to pull away, after letting the kiss linger longer, and deepen further, than she had intended.

"So what's the verdict?" Mason asks.

"I think you got every last drop."

He smiles. "And if you were to lay odds on me successfully wheedling another kiss out of you before I return to Dead End…"

"I'd give you seven in ten." She stands, trails her fingertips across his shoulders, and then walks across the gazebo to untie Bullseye.

[*]

Javier walks Rosita towards what he calls the "servant's quarters" next. Before they reach it, they come upon two men who are fighting messily in the slush and mud. A small crowd has gathered to cheer for one or the other. As soon as Javier and Rosita near, however, the men stop wrestling, and everyone snaps to attention, almost like soldiers. Most of the men are Hispanic, but a few are Anglo. There are lot of overalls and straw hats in the crowd.

"What's going on here?" Javier snaps. "There are horses to be groomed. Eggs to be collected. Goats to be milked. Animals to be fed. Equipment to be repaired. This is a farm, not a boxing arena!"

"He slept with my wife, señor!" the shorter of the two men says.

Javier's tone softens suddenly. "Well, I can't have you breaking a working man's arm, Raul," he says. "Or his leg. So in that case…" Javier shrugs. "Just break his nose."

Raul sucker punches the taller man with and upward jab straight in the nose. The crowd laughs as the man stumbles back, his hand covering the blood that is now splurting onto this face and shirt.

"Now go clean yourself up, David," Javier tells the taller man, "and get back to work."

"Si, señor."

"Everyone else, come meet my new bride." The people crowd around Roista curiously and introduce themselves one by one, the men tipping their hats to her and the women half-bowing their heads almost as if she's royalty. They keep calling Javier señor when they congratulate him on his marriage.

It suddenly occurs to Rosita that despite not being a Weatherford or a member of the Family Council, Javier might actually have more authority at Dead End than Amos's own children.


	57. Chapter 57

Daryl looks in the mirror and runs his fingertips over his goatee. It feels fine to him, but then he’s never had a man’s goatee between his thighs.

“Screw it,” he mutters and sprays shaving cream into his hand and lathers up his entire face. He proceeds to shave until every bit of his skin is smooth.

He splashes frigid water on his face – because he’s not about to bother with the kettle – and then looks up into the mirror as the droplets weave their way down his bare, smooth cheeks and drip from his almost shoulder-length hair.

He looks about seventeen.

“Oh fuck!”

 [*]

After the crowd disperses, Javier walks Rosita onto the servant’s quarters, which is a long, rambling brick structure with dormitory-style rooms on both sides of a cement-paved hallway.   There are wind turbines on the roof, spinning lightly. “Do those actually give you power?” she asks. 

“To the furnace. We have central heat in this building, which is good, because there are no fireplaces. And they generate power for the break room. The bedrooms don’t have power, though.” They pass two forest green doors on each side and then a wider, blue door with the word  _Cowgirls_  in gold lettering.   “That’s the women’s bathroom.”

Rosita pushes the door open. Sunlight filters down through a large, domed skylight and a window at the far end also lets in light. A flashlight lantern rests on top of a metal trashcan by the door. The room has two toilet stalls, three sinks, and two shower stalls, and it feels about thirty degrees warmer than the outside hallway.  

“Don’t worry,” Javier tells her when she shuts the door. “You and I have our own private bathroom.”

They pass a blue door with the word  _Cowboys_  next. “The men’s, I suppose?” she asks.

“Mrs. Weatherford – Amos’s second wife – thought it was cute. She died a year after the Epidemic.”

“Did the field hands  _always_  live here?”  

“Some did, during picking season,” he answers.  “And Amos rented out some of the rooms to upperclassmen who went to the college twelve miles from here. One of those students still lives here. In that room.” He points to a door. As he does, it suddenly opens. A young black man, maybe twenty-two, stands in the door frame.

“Oh shit,” the young man says when he sees Javier, and he slams the door shut.

Javier pounds on the door. “Open up, Dante!”

The young man does, hesitantly, and the sickly sweet scent of marijuana drifts out. “Yes, sir?”  

“Who else is in there?”

“No – “

Javier kicks the door open the rest of the way. “Santiago!” he yells. “Get your ass back to work. You can’t be sitting around smoking pot! You’ve got a  _baby_  on the way. A new wife!”

Santiago, sitting on a low bed, scratches his wispy black goatee. Looking dazed, he rustles on his boots after a few tries and walks out the door, beneath Javier’s glare. “You’re mucking the stalls for a week!” Javier shouts after him. He turns back to Rosita. “And now you’ve met my niece’s useless husband.”

Dante tries to shut the door, but Javier holds it open. “Carolyn?” he says to a young woman who is sitting in a desk chair. She resembles Garret Weatherford’s daughters, though a little older. “If your father knew what you were up to – “

“- Please don’t tell him,” she begs. “I didn’t even inhale it!”

“Get back home.”

Carolyn grabs her coat, says, “I’ll see you later, Dante,” and kisses the young black man’s cheek.

After she disappears down the hall, Javier turns his attention to Dante. “We grow that for medicinal purposes only. Juanita needs that or she’ll be in real pain.”

“I think I might have glaucoma. My eye’s really been – “

“Put it out.  _Now_. And get to work.”

“It’s my day off,” Dante insists, dancing from foot to foot.

“You’re mucking the stalls for a week, too. And if I find you pinching the pot again, I swear to God – “

“-Yes, sir. I understand. I  _really_  have to take a piss, though. That’s why I opened the door in the first place. Can I go?”

Javier sighs. He steps away from the door as the young man rushes out.

Rosita raises an eyebrow and bites down a smile. Javier puts a hand on the small of her back and urges her on. Two doors later, he says, “This is where my niece Martina and Santiago live.” He knocks.

A young woman with a pregnant belly answers. She looks like she’s just been taking a nap, and her brown hair is disarrayed. She appears more Anglo than Hispanic to Rosita, with yellow-blue eyes.  Martina smiles when Javier introduces Rosita. “He talks about you all the time.” 

“Did you know what your husband was up to?” Javier asks.

Martina sighs. “Uncle Javi, cut him some slack once in awhile.”

“I’ve cut him  _plenty_.” His voice softens. “Sorry I woke you. Get back to sleep.”

Martina slips back into her room, and Javier leads Rosita across the hall to a door labeled  _Break Room_. “This is the room that has power.” Javier throws the door open to reveal a room the size of two standard classrooms. Rosita steps inside on the cheap brown industrial carpet. The overhead lights are off, but she can hear the low hum of the white refrigerator at the end of the counter. The counter has a double kitchen sink and is covered with small appliances – a microwave, electric kettle, blender, toaster oven, crock pot, and electric gridle.  

Two men are sitting at a card table and eating soup. “Hello, Mateo,” Javier says. “Don.”

“Señor.” Mateo, a wiry, middle-aged Hispanic man, stands abruptly and takes off his straw hat.  Don, a stocky red-head, is a bit slower to rise, but he does the same.

“This is my new wife. Rosita. From Hillcrest.”

The men walk over, shake her hand, and introduce themselves. 

“I was just showing her the place,” Javier explains.

Mateo nods and waves his hand around the room, which has four card tables with sixteen folding chairs. More folded chairs are stacked against one wall.  Toward the end of the room is a cheap, dormitory-style couch and a pair of armchairs surrounding a TV with a DVD player. The TV is on, showing Looney Tunes cartoons, and five kids crowd together on the couch, the littlest one sitting on the lap of the biggest one. Two more kids lounge in the arm chairs. They’re all Hispanic except for one brown-haired, blue-eyed, freckled boy who turns on his knees and peers at Rosita curiously.  He reminds her, with a pang, of a younger Carl.

“Thirty-minute limit on the TV,” Javier reminds the kids.

“Yes, sir,” the freckled boy answers. “It’s only been fifteen.”  He turns around again. One of the girls laughs as an anvil falls on Wiley Coyote.

“If you ever want a snack,” Javier tells Rosita. “Help yourself to any of the food in here. As long as it doesn’t have a name label on it. The food is restocked weekly from the main pantry. Just be reasonable.” He nods to the men, who are still standing. “Por favor, get back to your soup.”

The men nod and return to their seats.

Javier ushers Rosita out, and as the door slides shut behind them, she says, “Seems like you’re the big man on campus.”

He shrugs, takes her hand, and walks her to the far end of the hall, which dead ends into a large square. “And this is  _our_  place, mi amor.”

[*]

When Carol comes to their bedroom, she expects to find Daryl waiting impatiently for her, but he hasn’t even lit the fireplace, and the bathroom door is shut. It’s cold. She goes and gets the fire started, and, when he’s still not out, she leans with one hand against the wall by the bathroom door and asks, “Daryl?”

His sullen, gruff voice penetrates the wood, “Promise not to laugh.”

That alone almost makes her laugh, but she chokes it down. “Okay,” she says. “Why?”

He opens the door and stands there with the darkest of glowers, but the glower doesn’t look as formidable as usual, because his cheeks are baby smooth and – “What have you done to your hair?”  He’s chopped it off at about mid-ear, quite unevenly.

“I shaved to be smooth to go down on ya,” he said. “Didn’t expect to look like a damn  _kid_. Thought if I cut my hair shorter, maybe I’d at least look less like an 80s teenage head banger.”

She covers her mouth with a hand to hide her laugh.

“Guess I ain’t getting’ laid now. For a year.”

“Oh, Pookie.” She puts the hand that was on her mouth on his side just above his belt buckle. “For better or for worse, remember? And if this is as bad as it gets, I’m pretty blessed.”

He glowers.

“Don’t worry, we can fix it. The goatee will grow back. And the hair…I’ll cut it properly short.” She shrugs. “I always thought you were cute with short hair.”

“Don’t wanna be  _cute_.”

“I thought you looked  _good_ ,” she says. “When we first met.”

He looks at her skeptically. “When we  _first_  met?”

“Sure. Your roots turn up more when it’s shorter. The hair’s a little lighter. And I just…I liked it. Or maybe I just remember liking it because that’s when I fell in love with you.”

“When we  _first_  met?” he repeats in disbelief.

“Well, not at the quarry camp. At Hershel’s farm.”

“Ya fell in love with me at Hershel’s farm?” he asks, looking incredibly confused.

She shrugs. “In a way. Not the way I’m in love with you now, but…in a way. When you searched so hard for Sophia. When you brought me that Cherokee rose.”

His mouth drops open and then closes. “Damn,” he mutters. “We…so we could have been havin’ sex this whole damn time?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “No. I wasn’t ready for sex until I came into your tent. I wasn’t even  _quite_  ready then, to be honest. It was like jumping into the water all at once to get it over with.”

“Get it  _over_  with!”

She closes her eyes, sighs, and opens them. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just mean…it was a risk for me. I didn’t know if you liked me that way, I didn’t know how it was going to turn out…I just knew I loved you and I wanted us to be closer and I couldn’t keep waiting around for that to happen. So I figured…take the plunge. And it worked out, didn’t it?”

He chews on his lower lip. “Mhmhm. Till I did this.” He points to his hair.

She chuckles. “Come here.”  She jerks her head toward the vanity, which is a small wooden desk with several drawers, a mounted mirror, and a chair. She walks over and pulls out the chair. The fire is beginning to warm the room. “Sit down. I’ll cut your hair.  _Properly_.”


	58. Chapter 58

Javier turns the knob and pushes the door open slightly. "I have to do this." He sweeps Rosita up into his arms, kicks the door open, and carries her over the threshold before setting her down on her feet on an area rug covering a cement floor.

Her two cardboard boxes of belongings are already sitting at the foot of the queen-size bed, which rests in a simple metal frame. "I had Father Nicolas drop them off," he says. "I cleared out the nightstand on the left. That's yours now. And the top two drawers of the big dresser."

The suite has two alcoves. In one, a twelve-string guitar leans against the arm of a brown leather love seat. There's a bookcase, coffee table, and an end table with a small stereo and a stack of sheet music on it. The other alcove contains a green metal filing cabinet, a floor lamp currently plugged into a portable power pack, and a roll-top desk covered with open account books and sticky notes.

Rosita surveys the walls, which hold six guitars by their necks in wall stands. Javier follows her eyes. "I can take those down if you don't like them. Store them somewhere."

"It's fine." She walks to the wall and presses her fingers against tape residue. "But I see you took down all your posters of naked women for me."

"It was an outdated wall calendar."

Rosita smirks and walks across the large space to peer into the small bathroom, which has a toilet, sink, and shower stall but no tub. She comes back out and opens the bedroom closet by sliding the mirrored door to the right. Javier's clothes are neatly hung and take up less than half the space, though the top shelf is covered in boxes of ammunition, farmer's hats, and work gloves, while boots line the floor and two rifles and a shotgun lean against one wall.

"I cleared out half the hanging space for you," he says. He sounds strangely nervous, not his usually cocky self, as if he's afraid she won't like the home he's offering her.

"Thank you." She turns to him and reassures him by saying, "How'd you score such a sweet suite?"

"It was part of the payment for my promotion to manager, before the Epidemic. No rent. It was great because…well, I was paying a lot of alimony and child support. And this way I didn't have to live alone after my wife left me. I felt like part of the Weatherford family."

"Amos entrusts you with a lot."

"I'm  _the_  manager."

She sashays over to him and takes hold of his belt buckle. " _The_  manager, huh?"

He grins. " _The_  manager. You're going to have to call me jefe from now on."

"I'm  _not_  calling you jefe," she insists.

"Fine," he says. "Then call me husband." He lifts her by her hips and tosses her, laughing, onto the bed.

[*]

Carol's fingers feel fantastic in his hair. Daryl didn't know a scalp massage was going to be part of the haircut. Damn, he should get his hair cut  _every_  week. "Mhmmm….."

"You're purring like a kitten."

"Ain't a kitten."

She chuckles. He opens his eyes and grumbles when she finally stops. She rests her hands on his shoulders and looks at him in the mirror. "Do you like it?"

"Don't matter if I like it. Do ya?"

"Yes. You look very handsome. Like a handsome pool boy."

He glowers.

"I'm  _teasing_."

"Look like a damn teenager."

"You do  _not_.  _Trust_  me. You just look a few years younger." She bends down and kisses the top of his head. "Hey, for me, it'll be like getting to have sex with two different men. Then you can grow back your beard but keep your hair short and it will be like I get to have sex with  _three_  different men."

"Good," rumbles Daryl, standing and pulling her to himself. "'Cause that's as close as yer ever gonna get to havin' sex with more than one man ever again." He lowers his head for a deep kiss. Her tongue tastes like she's been eating Dead End's dried apricots, and he sucks off the flavor, which seems to excite her.

Carol pulls away and runs a thumb down his cheek. "So beautifully smooth. Let's try that out, why don't we?"

[*]

As they lie panting side by side, Javier asks, "How does it feel to fuck the boss?"

"About the same as it felt to fuck the trade representative," she answers.

"That  _good_ , huh?" He rolls on his side, smirking, and slings an arm over her. "Do you like it?"

"It was good."

"No, I mean Dead End?"

"What's not to like?" That's as true an answer as she can give, but she's not sure how long she'll continue to feel like a stranger here.

"I love you, Rosita. I want you to be happy here."

"I will be, mi amor. Because  _you're_  here."

Javier smiles, kisses her, and slips out of bed. He pulls on his boxers and jeans. "I have to talk to one of my assistant managers to make sure he covers something for me." He slides on his t-shirt and then his sweater. "I'll be less than thirty minutes, and then I'll come back and shower and change. Why don't you enjoy a hot shower and get dressed for dinner?"

"You have  _hot_  water?"

"Yes. I forgot to say. The turbines power the water heater, too. But keep it to under seven minutes."

[*]

Daryl hastily undoes his belt buckle as he rises from between Carol's legs. She's lying with her legs half off the bed, still shuddering from the orgasm he gave her. There's a loud rasp as he jerks his zipper down.

One hand on the mattress, he leans down to kiss her. "My turn," he growls against her mouth. Soon enough he's in her, and he thinks maybe he's in heaven.

Carol grips the short hands of his freshly cut hair as the bed creaks beneath them.

[*]

Rosita hasn't had a hot shower since Alexandria. When she gets out, even though the central heat is kept at low, the room is so much warmer than her bedroom at Hillcrest that she doesn't feel cold. She dresses and unpacks her boxes but doesn't use even half the space Javier left her.

When she's done, she looks over the contents of the bookcase in the corner and spies a portfolio style frame with two photographs of two little girls, about age five, Javier's late daughters, she presumes. The books are mostly about agriculture, with a few on guitars or musicians, and there's are two diplomas from Texas A&M sitting on top of the bookcase – one for a B.S. in Agriculture Science and the other for an M.A. in Soil and Crop Science. It's strange to think that Javier lived here  _before_  the collapse and that his day-to-day life hasn't changed radically.

There's a knock on the door, and when she goes to answer, she finds a short, plump woman standing there with two clean towels folded neatly in her hands. The woman startles. "Oh," she says. "You must be Javier's new wife?"

"Rosita."

"I'm Maria." She hands her the towels. "Clean towels."

Rosita takes them. "Thank you."

"I've come to collect the laundry."

Rosita looks around. "I…uh…"

"I know where it is, if you don't mind me coming in."

Rosita steps back and the woman goes straight to the bathroom, opens the linen closet, and removes a cloth bag full of clothes, which she cinches and throws over her shoulder.

"Javier has you do his laundry?" Rosita asks.

"I do  _everyone's_  laundry. Well, except the Weatherfords. Mr. Garret's girls do that. It's my job. I'm not good at farming. Or much of anything, really."

"Oh, good." Rosita smiles with relief. "I was beginning to think Javier had an army of personal servants, given the way everyone acts around here. Calling him sir. Snapping to attention around him."

Maria smiles. "Well, he  _is_  the manager. If people break the rules, he has the power to cut their rations or assign them to unpleasant jobs like mucking the stalls or cleaning the toilets. But he's a good manager. He's fair. And people respect him. He works harder than anyone. I'm glad he's found you. He seems less tense than he has in a long time. Happier. Ever since the refugee uprising, he's felt so guilty."

"Why?"

"Because he was the one who found those people on a supply run. He was the one who brought them to Dead End."

"What happened, exactly?" Rosita asks.

"One night, they dragged the lock checker into one of their rooms and killed him. Then they targeted the rooms of the three men who were on night watch in the stands, because they knew their wives would be alone. They picked the locks, broke in, silenced the men's wives, and…raped them." Maria swallows and shakes her head. She forces herself on: "It was a while before they were heard. Then fighting broke out. Four women and two men were killed before the attackers could be stopped. Javier's brother and his sister-in-law died."

"And the refugees?"

"They were all killed in the fighting or captured and executed. We've never taken in any one new since then. Until now." Maria smiles reluctantly at Rosita. "But Javier knew you? From before?"

"Yes," Rosita reassures her. "He and my brother were good friends." She doesn't say how long ago that was, or that Javier only met her once when she was a teenager.

[*]

Daryl snorts awake because Carol is tickling his rib cage. He must have dozed off right after sex. "Sorry," he mutters and rolls on his side to spoon with her. Before he can drift off again, she asks, "When did you fall in love with me?"

His eyes fly open. Tension grips his muscles because that's a question he has no idea how to answer.

"Hmmm?" she asks. "When did you fall in love with me?"

"Dunno," he admits. "Snuck up on me."

She rolls in his arms to face him. "Okay, then when did you know for  _sure_?"

He swallows. "Guess…When I told ya I did."

"Oh."

She clearly wanted some other answer than that, probably some earlier time, maybe way back to the farm. And maybe he  _did_  love her then. He wanted so desperately to find Sophia. At first the search was for  _him_. Because nobody had bothered to look for him when he was a lost little boy, he wanted to search for Sophia. But after a while, maybe the search was more for Carol than for himself. Carol's tears tore and awful hole in his heart back then, but that sad, little smile she gave him when he brought her the Cherokee rose tore an even bigger one. He felt a dozen foreign feelings in those days and didn't know what a single one of them meant.

"'S just when I  _knew_ ," he says quietly. "Don't mean I didn't love ya already. Just…didn't  _know_. Hell, Carol, didn't even know what love  _was_  'fore I loved you."

That must be an okay answer, because she does that little hiccup she sometimes does when something's touched her, and then she presses her forehead to his and kisses him softly. But best of all, she says, in a quiet, unmistakably certain voice, "I love you, Daryl."

[*]

Javier opens the front door of the big house. Rosita takes a hesitant step inside. He sheds his coat, hangs it on a gold coat rack, and then takes Rosita's. He's wearing a crisp, light blue buttoned down shirt and khakis now, as though he's taking her out to dinner. She didn't have anything nice to wear, so she settled on her cleanest pair of jeans and a red sweater.

Rosita follows him through the foyer to a living room. The place is so clean. Everywhere they've lived, except for Alexandria, has been dirty, covered in dust. Even when they  _clean_  it, it never seems to get really  _clean._ But this place has clearly been lived in continuously and well maintained since the Outbreak.

A grand piano looms in the living room. On the wall across from it stretches a gold-framed oil painting – a realistic family portrait. It depicts the Weatherford family standing on the porch and steps of the house. Bursting green grape vines weave through the porch railings. A tall, wide-girthed man with light brown hair stands before the front door with his arm slung around a slender, black woman. In her arms, she cradles a mocha-skinned infant. On the first stair below them stands a young woman with platinum blonde hair and a young man with dirty blonde hair. Six more children are staggered on the next two steps, ranging in age from toddler to late teens.

Javier points to the man. "Amos."

Rosita's eyes survey the formidable figure, who is now, she knows, in his late seventies.

Javier point to the black woman. "His second wife. Nicole. She passed last year."

"In the uprising?"

"No. Natural causes."

He points to the baby. "Colton." Then to the twenty-somethings. "Dolly and Garret." He points to a brown skinned toddler. "Henrietta." And then to a preschooler as dark as Amos's wife. "Isaac. He died in the Epidemic." He points to a blue-eyed, tow-headed boy of about twelve. "Cooper. The one you found turned at Hillcrest." Then he points to a blonde girl. "The girl that was in your camp at the Hilltop? Caitlyn? That's her mother Geraldine. I suppose she's dead." He sweeps his finger over a set of blond identical twin boys. "They both died in the Epidemic."

"Where's Mason?" Rosita asks.

"He was gone by the time this was painted." Javier takes her hand and leads her toward the sound of voices and laughter. They pass through a kitchen where the five young Weatherford kids Rosita saw playing in the slush now sit at a light oak table. It appears they're being supervised by Garrett Weatherford's three older daughters.

"Hey, Javier," Elizabeth says as she sets an empty plate down before one of the boys. "When's Carson getting back?"

"Tomorrow morning. He wanted to stay and hang out with Elijah."

"I'd like to meet Elijah someday," Elizabeth says. "Carson's always talking about him. Maybe I could go with y'all next time?"

"I don't think your father would allow that."

Elizabeth glances at the saloon-style shutters that close off the doorway between the kitchen and dining room and whispers, "He doesn't have to know."

"No way," Javier tells her. He takes Rosita's hand and tugs her through the kitchen. She feels a sudden nervousness when he pushes open the shutter-door and leads her into the dining room full of Weatherfords…and the awaiting patriarch.


	59. Chapter 59

"And Baptist do not recognize one another in the liquor store," Mason concludes, and everyone laughs.

Henry looks from face to face. "I don't get it."

"I'll explain the joke later," Carol tells him. She sips her red wine, sets it down, and cuts into the mutton.

"Damn good," Daryl mutters between bites.

"Are you hunting tomorrow?" Rick asks.

Daryl nods. "Checked Carol's traps today. Caught a fox. Gonna track a deer tomorrow. Without the ice, should have better luck."

"And I hope to get some grouse," Dianne says. She looks at Mason. "Do you think it will freeze again?"

"Once maybe," Mason answers. "And that might keep you from hunting for two or three days, but then it will warm again. It may snow, but only a few inches here and there."

"So with everything you brought us," Michonne says, "and some successful hunting, we should be fine for meat until the spring."

"By April, it'll be in the 70s," Mason tells her. "And by August…you'll be  _wishing_  for winter. How are you on cooling?"

"There are some electric fans we can plug into the portable power packs," Rick answers. "But we only have a few of those packs. And only a few fans. I guess it's open windows."

"Hmmm…." Mason muses. "No manual ceiling fans?"

"They're on light switches," Carol says.

"I'll see if I can talk my brother-in-law Eddie into coming out here. He's an electrician and very handy. He can convert those ceiling fans to manual for you. Make them run by winding up. He doesn't like to leave the vineyard, but I'll see what I can do."

"We appreciate everything you've done for our people," Dianne tells him.

Mason smiles. "Well, we're one people now, aren't we? We've joined the two clans through marriage."

"But does your father see it that way?" Ezekiel asks.

"No," Mason admits. "He just sees Rosita as coming into the family, and he was reluctant enough about  _that_. But maybe…in time…he could come to see things differently. Maybe our gates could be open to one another, for more than trade. And we could…" He glances across the table at Dianne. "See one another more often."

[*]

Everyone suddenly stops talking when Rosita walks into the dining room.

All of the Weathford siblings and their spouses - seven adults in all – stand holding glasses filled with white wine. One man is already seated at the head of the twelve-person dining room table – a grizzly, gray-haired, wrinkled old man that's built like a brick, with a nasty scar scratched across his forehead.

He scrapes back his chair and pulls himself to his full height. "Rosita Espinosa de Santos, I presume?"

"Yes, sir," Rosita replies and then bites her tongue. She can't believe she just called someone  _sir_. But his stature and demeanor seem almost to demand it.

"I'm Amos Weatherford, the owner of Dead End." He extends a calloused hand, worn, perhaps, by years of tending vines.

Rosita walks forward and shakes, relieved that he seems to be welcoming her to his table.

"You've met my children?" he asks.

"I met Dolly and Colton," she says, hoping she's remembering everyone's names correctly. "Henrietta and Garret and his wife Candy."

"I'm Henrietta's husband Eddie," a forty-something black man says. He has a goatee with an old-fashioned handle bar mustache that Rosita tries not to stare at. She shakes his hand.

"And I'm Colton's wife, Blossom." A lithe, dark-eyed woman with long, flowing black hair reaches for Rosita's hand, and Rosita shakes it. She's probably almost thirty, since Colton said they met in high school and she has a nine-year-old son, but she looks about nineteen.

They all sit down to dinner, which is brought to them by two servants. It unnerves Rosita a little to be served, but she supposes the Weatherfords aren't living much differently than they did four or five years ago. They probably had servants before the Outbreak. Only now, those servants are being paid in room and board and with protection from walkers and men instead of through a salary.

The food – fried fish and a pickled salad of some kind – is good, but not as good as Carol cooks. Rosita wonders what  _her_  family is eating tonight.

[*]

Empty bowls that once contained a dessert of cinnamon spiced applesauce now lie before the Hillcrest diners.

"Could we be excused?" Carson asks.

Elijah laughs. "You don't have to ask that here." He stands, scrapes back his chair, and picks up his bowl. "We're going to go work on our robots."

"But it is  _polite_ ," Enid tells him. "That's not a  _bad_  thing. That Carson is  _polite_." She also stands and takes her bowl, as does Carson.

Elijah scowls slightly as the three vanish together from the dining room.

"Coffee's damn good!" Daryl whispers to Carol. "Put somethin' in it?"

"A little nutmeg with the grounds," Carol says with a smile. She always enjoys his little compliments. "So they wouldn't taste so stale."

[*]

Colton, Eddie, and Candy are all talkative sorts, while Henrietta, Blossom, and Dolly are more soft-spoken, and Garret is as silent as the grave. But all of the conversation gives way to Amos's booming voice when he begins to question Rosita.

The interview feels strangely like a meet-the-parents scenario, but more intimidating. The eldest Weatherford spends ten minutes shooting questions her way -  _How did you get all the way from Texas to Virginia? How many lurchers have you killed? How many people have you killed? Why did you kill them? How tight a group can you shoot? Do you have any farming skills? Do you have any mechanical skills? Do you have any medical skills? What did you do for a living before the Epidemic?_

"I was an army mechanic at Fort Hood."

"For how long?" Amos asks.

"I was only about six months out of training before it all started."

"And before you joined the army?" Amos asks.

"I was a receptionist."

Javier makes a choking sound as he swallows down his wine. He smirks. "Hard to imagine you as a receptionist."

Rosita rolls her eyes toward him. "I was  _very_  friendly."

"Yeah?" he asks.

"No. I hated it. It's why I quit to join the army. But it paid the bills for a while."

"Let's put her on equipment maintenance," Amos says. "Tractors and farm trucks and such. For now."

Javier nods. "Yes, sir. She can reload ammunition, also."

"Sounds like she could do supply runs, too," Colton suggests.

"I don't want her leaving the gates for the first six months," Amos replies.

"Excuse me?" Rosita asks.

"Until we know we can trust you not to collude with anyone," Amos says.

Rosita's fork freezes in her hand. " _Collude_?"

"We don't want you sharing the wealth or geography or security measures of Dead End with anyone on the outside who might not wish us well."

Rosita shoots a burning look in Javier's direction.

"Sir…" Javier says. "I told Rosita we'd go on trade trips together to Hillcrest so that she can see her people."

"We  _are_  her people now," Amos replies. "That was the  _point_  of the marriage."

"But…I told her - "

"- Well, you shouldn't have promised her anything without first consulting with me."

Javier swallows and shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He opens his mouth and then closes it as if he's carefully considering his words.

"Pa," Dolly says softly. "That's a bit much. Let her go on the trade trips. Hillcrest already knows what we have."

"They've never been inside," Amos says. "I agreed to take her in. I did not agree to trust her whole heartedly from day one."

"Oh, come on, Pa!" Colton exclaims. "We've been trading peacefully with these people for months."

"To our disadvantage," Amos reminds him.

"But  _peacefully_ ," Dolly insists. "They've done nothing to try to harm us. Mason speaks well of – "

"-  _Mason_ ," Amos interrupts. He shakes his head and raises his wine glass to his lips, sipping it down hard as if he doesn't like the taste. "The prodigal son does not get to decide how things are run."

"Nor do  _you_ ," Dolly replies. "We have a  _family_  council."

Amos holds his eldest daughter's eyes coolly.

Rosita watches this exchange carefully, trying to gauge each of the family members. She's surprised by Dolly's assertiveness. The midwife seemed so mild during her two visits to Hillcrest to check on Michonne. The in-laws stay out of it, Candy shifting nervously in her seat and dabbing her mouth repeatedly with her napkin, Blossom sharing knowing glances with Colton but not saying anything, and Eddie busying himself with clearing every last morsel from his plate. Garrett stays out of it, too, speaking not a word, and revealing nothing in his blank expression as he, too, observes the exchange.

"And I am the  _head_  of that council," Amos reminds Dolly. "I've worked this land since I was a boy. I've had my hands in this dirt for over  _seventy_ years. And I've chosen the best, most loyal manager possible, without whom  _none_  of my children could hope to run this place." He turns his eyes from Dolly to Javier. "He made a mistake once, in bringing murderers and rapists inside our gates."

Javier lowers his head to his plate in shame.

"But he's more cautious now," Amos continues. "He would never put our people at risk again. Isn't that right, Javier?"

"Sir," Javier replies, looking up again, his face a mixture of anger, guilt, and trepidation. As he speaks, he sounds more deferential than Rosita has ever heard him. All the familiar cockiness is drained from his voice. "Hillcrest is not an enemy. They're an ally."

"You disagree with my caution?" Amos asks him.

Javier sits up a little straighter. "When Rosita married me, she was not committing to six months of confinement behind these gates. I can't ask that of – "

"-It's fine," Rosita interrupts.

Javier looks at her with wide-eyes.

"It's  _fine_ ," she repeats. "I won't leave the gates for six months." She looks directly at Amos. "If that's what it takes to reassure a stubborn old man like you that my intentions and the intentions of my people are honorable, well then  _that's_  what I'll do."

Amos raises a bushy, grayish-white eyebrow. He looks her over guardedly, but then he raises his glass to Javier. "Looks like you got yourself a live one."

[*]

"So what are you building now?" Enid asks from where she sits on the couch. The boys are on the floor and tinkering with a machine on the coffee table. It's much smaller than their precision seeders were.

"A bomb bot," Carson says.

"A what?" Enid ask.

"A remote controlled robot that can roll out under a truck and explode it," Elijah explains. "In case, you know, anyone ever comes to the gates and tries to attack us. We could lower it down and just remote control it out it to one of their vehicles, without opening the gate."

"So you've moved from butter to guns," Enid says. "Great."

"What?" Carson asks. "Can't farm if you don't defend."

"True enough." She leans back on the couch. "You're really good at this stuff, Carson. It just seems to come naturally to you."

Elijah looks up from his work, a cloud spreading across his face. "Carson has a girlfriend now. He's going to marry her."

"I did  _not_  say that. I did not say I was going to marry her."

"Yes you did," Elijah insists.

"I said it was kind of inevitable that's maybe probably sort of how it might end up."

Enid snorts. "Why?"

"Because if I  _ever_  want to marry anyone near my age, it's Carolyn – who's kind of dumb and totally into Dante anyway. Or it's Ana. Or it's Elizabeth. Or you."

Enid tries not to laugh when she sees the scowl on Elijah's face.

"Enid  _has_  a boyfriend," Elijah says deliberately.

"I know. That's why I said it's kind of sort of inevitable I'll marry Elizabeth."

"You two should totally duel over me," Enid tells them. "That would be hot."

"Sorry," Carson tells her. "Not interested. No offense, but you're not as sweet and innocent as I like them."

Enid splurts out a laugh, and Elijah laughs too. Carson smiles.

[*]

"You didn't have to say that," Javier tells Rosita as he shuts their bedroom door later that evening. "I'm not going to keep you prisoner here. I'll give it a couple of days, and then I'll talk to Amos again. I'll – "

Rosita puts a finger on his lips to silence him. "There's a reason I said it." She steps back, sheds her coat, and hangs it in the closet.

Javier takes his off, tosses it on the bed, and stands there, looking bewildered.

"Amos respects you," Rosita says when she turns from the closet. "A lot. I heard what he said about his children not being able to run this place without you. The only thing he holds against you is bringing in those refugees."

Javier's jaw tightens.

"And you hold that against yourself. But you shouldn't. What happened wasn't  _your_  fault. You can't live like that." She thinks of Daryl blaming himself for Abraham's death, of all the things she's blamed herself for over the past three years. "Second guessing yourself…it'll eat you up."

He looks away.

"Javier, you have his respect, and I'm not going to stand in the way of that. You have the respect of these people." She waves toward the rest of the servant's quarters. "And I'm not going to stand in the way of that either. I'm not going to risk doing something that may cause you to lose that. Because, eventually, Amos is going to die. And then who's going to be the leader of Dead End?"

"He's named Garret his successor," Javier replies.

"The man who never speaks? He's going to lead people?"

Javier shrugs. "He's the eldest son after Mason, and since Mason left at eighteen, and didn't come back until after the Epidemic, Amos doesn't want to pass Dead End to him. But I guess that in reality the Family Council will keep ruling. And they might let Mason on it when Amos is gone, so there are five people again, to break ties. But Garret will be its official head."

"No," Rosita tells him. "Garret is not going to be the leader of Dead End."

"What do you mean?"

She takes a step closer, hooks a finger through his beltloop, and draws him closer. "Javier,  _you're_  going to be the leader of Dead End.  _You're_  going to be the head of that Council."

"And what? You're going to be my Lady Macbeth?"

"I'm not suggesting we  _kill_  anyone," she says. "We just need to be patient. Which has never been my strong suit. Or  _yours_. But it's what you need to do. Be patient. Keep the respect of the family and the workers. Don't make waves. Bide your time. And then assume the crown you  _deserve_."

"But I don't deserve it. I've already let these people down once."

"You're a born leader, Javier. You can lead these people. You're  _already_  leading most of them. You're a good man. And you can be a great one."

The left side of Javier's lips twitches into a smile. "Damn, hermosa, I want fuck you so badly right now."

"What's stopping you?"

She wraps her legs around him when he abruptly lifts her up. Javier carries her across the room, clears the account books from his desk with one arm, and sets her down before she begins to tear at his shirt.


	60. Chapter 60

Mason sets the cardboard box down beside the nightstand while Dianne plops the suitcase on the bed. "Thanks for helping to bring my stuff in." She looks around the room. "Rosita even left me the heater."

"Well, I should hope so. Javier's room has heat."

"I'll miss her, but It'll be nice to have my own room. Tara snores."

Mason chuckles and wraps a hand around one of the posts of the bed near where she stands. "Privacy is nice. Especially if you want to do any… _private_  things in your bedroom."

"Not tonight," she tells him bluntly. "Not yet."

He bites his bottom lip and she thinks he's going to deny that he made the hint, but he doesn't. He just says, "Well, I best be getting that fireplace started in the library to warm up the room before I go to sleep."

"Goodnight." Dianne stands on her tiptoes and kisses him softly.

When she pulls away, he says, "Goodnight, darlin'." He heads for the door, pauses, and turns. "Not  _yet_ , you say?"

She smiles. "Goodnight."

[*]

"Can't sleep?" Carol asks.

Daryl is lying on his back with his fingers on the quilt across his stomach, tapping them up and down. It's something he does when he's thinking. "Need to get that buck tomorrow. Fill that smokehouse. Tryin' to think which way he might of gone. Sign disappeared in the stream. 'S all slush and cold water now."

"It might take you a few days, but I'm confident you'll get it." She kisses his cheek. "We have food for a while. Don't stress so much. Go to sleep."

He rolls on his side and spoons up with her.

[*]

Rosita awakes in the middle of the night to find Javier working at the roll top desk by the light of a kerosene lamp. He's flipping through ledgers and making notes.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Not morning," he tells her. "Go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you." He turns down the lamp slightly. She rolls over and goes to sleep.

The next morning, she awakes to find a note on his pillow: "Went to check the fields. Get some breakfast in the Break Room." – Javier

Rosita dresses and ventures cautiously into the break room. There's a family of four eating breakfast at one of the tables. They eye her curiously when she walks in, and the man whispers to the woman.

"I'm Rosita," she says, feeling very much like the new kid at school, and trying to sound casual. "Javier's wife."

The man and woman stand and come over and introduce themselves, and the woman asks if she can make her a breakfast taco.

"You have tortillas?" Rosita asks skeptically.

"Mr. Weatherford's daughter Henrietta makes them," the woman replies. "She bakes all sorts of bread and tortillas from the corn flour they make in the gristmill."

The man excuses his two kids from the table. He cleans off the mess they left and offers Rosita a spot at the table, while the woman scrambles up some eggs on the electric griddle and brings them to Rosita on a corn tortilla. When she bites into the tortilla – the first she's had in almost three years, Rosita says, "Oh my God."

The woman laughs.

[*]

Carol and Daryl have just walked out onto the porch, Carol ready to go check her traps and Daryl to hunt, when a truck pulls to a stop at the top of the dirt road and Colton Weatherford steps out. He wears a green baseball cap with a John Deere logo on it, which he tips to Carol as he mounts the porch stairs. "Hello, ma'am. You're looking lovely this morning."

Daryl looks him over warily, but Carol smiles in amusement. Colton – who is not quite thirty – is pretty adorable, really, with that curly dark hair and those arresting hazel eyes and a perfectly balanced mix of black and white skin.

"I'm here to reclaim my kin," Colton says. "Also, I thought I'd take Maggie to the barn and give her a run down on the care of the goat and horse and – "

"- Maggie grew up on a farm," Daryl interrupts. "Don't need yer rundowns."

"Is she a veterinarian?"

"No," Carol replies.

"Well, I am, and I really do need to review a few points of business with her." He smiles. "Speak of the devil."

Maggie has just walked out slowly onto the porch. The prosthetic keeps her from walking too fast.

Daryl and Carol leave them to their business and head out over the slushy earth to the forest.

[*]

Rosita finds Javier on his haunches in one of the fields examining the earth beneath the black tarps Dead End uses to cover the fields in winter. She's surprised to see how neatly and evenly plowed the earth is.

Two female field hands watch him, making admiring comments about his ass in Spanish. They fall immediately silent when they see Rosita lean against the fence.

When Javier spies her, he stands, smiles, and trudges to the fence. He leans on it and kisses her. "Sleep well?"

"Better than you. Are you always up in the middle of the night?"

He shrugs. "I just have my mind on the spring planting."

"What are you planting?"

"Broccoli, potatoes, collards, peas, turnips, carrots, and radishes."

Rosita eyes the women walking out of earshot and farther into the field. "Those women were talking about your ass."

He chuckles. "Well, it's nice to be admired. But don't worry. They're both married."

"So are  _you_."

"Fair point. I suppose  _that's_  the reason you shouldn't worry."

"Damn right," Rosita tells him. "Is any woman at Dead End  _not_  married?"

"Only Dolly Weatherford. And Garret Weatherford's three girls. Carolyn will probably end up with Dante no matter how much Garret tries to stop it."

"That pot smoking college kid?" Rosita asks.

He nods. "Carson will likely marry Elizabeth eventually. And Ana…I don't know. There are four men in their late twenties and early thirties just waiting for her to turn eighteen in two months."

"Eww."

He shrugs. "They aren't  _bad_  men. They're just…single. More women died in the uprising than men. The imbalance was bad enough before that, but now the men outnumber the women two to one. It creates problems. You saw the fight yesterday."

"And do you think Amos Weatherford would let a field hand marry his granddaughter?"

"What do you think his second wife did before he married her?"

"She was a  _field hand_?" Rosita asks.

"Well, no. She was his maid. But he's not English aristocracy. He's not snobbish."

"He has  _servants_. That cook his food and deliver it to his table."

"People need jobs, hermosa. The dignity of work. He's never been ungenerous with his workers. Pigheaded. Certainly. But never ungenerous."

"He's controlling, though."

Javier sighs. "Yeah. That's why Mason left home when he did, I suspect."

"So what am I supposed to be doing today?"

"Equipment maintenance. You'll work with Garret. I'll walk you to the garage."

[*]

Daryl and Carol pass her traps first, which have two squirrels and a walker.

The walker yields them a handgun and an extra, loaded magazine. "Feels like Christmas," Daryl says. He fishes in the creature's back pocket and pulls out a worn and faded magazine page.

"What's that?" Carol asks.

He unfolds it to reveal a buxom, naked centerfold and flushes. Carol laughs. "He carried that around in his  _back pocket_?"

Daryl makes a face and drops it. The page flutters to the ground as he rubs his fingertips across his canvass pants, over dirt and oil stains. "Gonna track that deer."

"I'll take care of the squirrels." She sighs. "Even though I hate skinning them."

"Good practice for ya." He kisses her cheek clumsily and then trudges deeper into the forest in search of deer tracks.

[*]

Garret Weatherford is the most silent person Rosita has ever met. She thought Daryl was silent, but he's not compared to this guy. At least Daryl will occasionally tell you a story about a Chupacabra, or spit out a fact about the eastern diamondback snake, or let you know he's more "zen" than you are, or  _something_. But Garret doesn't speak at all unless spoken to, and then he only answers briefly, and if he can, he answers with silent gestures. This is the man Amos thinks is going to lead the Family Council when he's gone?

Normally, Rosita likes silence when she works. She grew up with no sisters and five brothers, and she hates the kind of mindless chatter women seem to engage in sometimes. But because she's new here, and uncertain of her reception, the quiet is unnerving. "Do you have the Phillip's head over there?" she asks.

Garret silently rifles through his tool box, comes over, and hands it to her before returning to the engine he's tinkering with.

"The gasket needs replacing," she says a couple minutes later. "Do we have the parts?"

Garret points to a workbench. Rosita goes over and returns with what she needs and puts it on the cart by the tractor.

Ten minutes later, she can't stand the silence anymore. "Did you go to mechanic school?" Javier said Garret was the master winemaker here, so she wasn't expecting him to be a mechanic, too.

Garret shakes his head.

"I did. Well, I went to on-the-job training for thirteen weeks in the army, after ten weeks of boot camp. But I also learned a lot from my older brothers when I was growing up. How'd you learn?"

"Watching. Books. T-t-t" he spits out the word after the stutter – " _trial_  and air-air- _error_."

Now she understands why he doesn't speak often. Rosita leaves him alone after that. She says nothing until she shuts the hood and wipes her hands clean: "Let's try starting this one now."

Garret leans over into the tractor and turns the ignition. When the vehicle starts effortlessly, he smiles.

[*]

The next day, Daryl resumes tracking his elusive deer and ends up bringing down a great buck that will feed the camp for almost three weeks. He insists on mounting the antlers above the fireplace in their bedroom, to which Carol replies, "I just don't think it fits with the Chardonnay décor."

"Fits fine. Antler's are sort of white. Chardonnay's sort of white."

"I mean it doesn't fit the room's  _theme_."

"Room's theme's stupid anyhow."

"It's just…" Carol pulls out her trump card. "I think I'm going to find it difficult to have sex across from a pair of giant antlers. They'll be distracting for me."

A sound rumbles in his throat, part annoyance and part something else. It's the  _something else_  that gives her pause. She takes a moment to think about it and speculates that he feels she's rejecting the value of his prowess as a hunter. "But we do need to mark this kill. You bagged a deer that's going to feed this entire family for a long time. And those antlers are impressive. I think they would look fantastic above the fireplace in the billiard room, don't you? With all that cherry wood? That room  _needs_  something."

"Reckon so," Daryl agrees.

Henry and Jerry are perfectly pleased with the addition to their room, Henry dubbing it, "Awesome!"

[*]

Daryl loses two days of hunting to a resurgence of ice, but the first week of March, it thaws into trickling streams, and he bags a doe. The second week of March, the weather is confused, with the temperature rising and falling almost daily, sun followed by light snow. But the perpetual spinach makes a resurgence in the greenhouse, and broad beans begin to grow in planters alongside it.

The third week of March, Gracie begins to call Nabila "Mama" and Aaron "Dada."

"I'm not sure how I feel about this," Ezekiel admits over dinner one night.

"We've never been a conventional family," Aaron tells him. "Just roll with it."

Meanwhile, Judith has begun talking in longer, complete sentences and using personal pronouns. "She's not even three!" Rick says proudly. "Isn't that advanced?"

"I am vanced," Judith agrees. "Vewy vanced."

"We have to work on that r sound, though," Rick tells her.

"Lots of kids can't say that until they're five or six," Carol tells him. "Sophia was seven."

[*]

Mason, accompanied by his son Carson, has been visiting Hillcrest every three days. "I think he's coming more to court than to trade," Ezekiel tells Carol.

Javier no longer joins Mason on these trips. "He's busy with spring planting," Mason tells them, but they all know it's because Rosita's no longer here.

Rosita sticks to her promise not to venture outside the gates – for now – but Javier, without telling Amos, brings her the radio in the privacy of their bedroom so she can check in on her people every other day. During these calls, she always asks, "What do you need?" and when Mason comes to visit, he always has it.

"This marriage is the best thing that's ever happened to us," Rick tells Michonne one night as they settle into bed.

"Aww, babe, I think so, too…" She kisses his cheek.

"I actually meant Rosita's marriage to Javier. I meant the best thing that's happened to Hillcrest. But, yeah, this marriage is definitely the best thing that's happened to  _us_."

Michonne shakes her head and sighs. "And you were about to get laid tonight, too."

[*]

The last week of March, Nabila seizes Ezekiel's hand with excitement and drags him out onto the porch, down the stairs, and to the edge of the plowed and planted fields, where the fist confused, green growth now claws its way up through a lingering patch of snow.

"Hallelujah," he says.


	61. Chapter 61

Daryl wipes his boots three times on the matt inside the kitchen door. Carol has trained him well. "New deer's butchered," he says as he walks inside where Carol is preparing a dry rub.

"Is the smokehouse full now?"

"Just about." He leans down and sniffs from the bowl. "Pepper," he says.

"Among other things." She smiles.

"Need a haircut."

"I do?" She puts a hand at the back of her hair, forgetting she has spices on her fingers.

"Nah. Me. Gettin' a little long again."

"It's only been a month."

"Yeah, but…gettin' a little long."

"Okay, well, I'll be up in a few minutes after I put on the rub and get it started. You should get cleaned up." She looks him over. "Did you kill some walkers while you were out hunting?"

"Three."

"Huh. I thought we'd have got them all cleared out of those woods by now."

"Must be migratin'." As he walks through the kitchen he says, "Probably need to do that scalp massage thing longer this time. Good for the hair, huh?"

She chuckles. "Yes, I'll be sure to do it longer this time. For the hair."

Later, when she's in their bedroom working her fingers into his scalp, he sounds like a purring kitten. She doesn't tell him that this time. She just listens to the pleased sounds he makes with a small smile, and when she gets tired of the massage, she bends, kisses him on the top of the head, and asks, "Want to fool around?"

They make slow love beneath the quilt – they haven't needed the fireplace at all this week – and when Daryl drifts off to sleep, she returns to the kitchen to prepare the meal.

Enid pops in and offers to help her, and Carol gladly puts the girl to work popping open broad beans. She can tell something is on Enid's mind, but she waits for the girl to broach the subject herself. "So…" Enid says finally. "Umm….Could I maybe get some more of those condoms?"

" _Oh_. Wow." That was not the sage and motherly answer Carol had planned to make if Enid were ever to announce her lost virginity, but that's what comes out.

Enid sighs and rolls her eyes. "It's not a big deal."

"It  _is_  a big deal." Carol pulls off the top of a broad bean. "It's a  _very_  big deal, Enid." She unzips the pod and pops the beans into a bowl with the others before seizing another pod. "And Elijah better be treating it like it's a big deal. You  _gave_  yourself to him."

Flushing, Enid says, "Well, he's pretty happy about it if that's what you mean. He thought I was falling for Carson. Which is kind of why I did it. To reassure him I wasn't."

"Oh."

"You think that's bad?" Enid asks. She twists a top off her bean pod.

"No," Carol hastens. "I just…well…"

"You think it's bad."

"You don't have to have sex with a guy to  _reassure_  him, Enid. He needs to work out that confidence for himself. And Elijah has no right to be jealous when you haven't done anything."

"Well….I kind of did do something. Kind of?"

Carol glances at her with a raised eyebrow and then returns to the bean she's opening.

"I might of…kissed Carson?"

"Might have?" Carol asks.

"We were just joking around. Because Jerry never took down that mistletoe from Christmas. No one did. But I might have been flirting with him before that. I don't know. I love Elijah. And I like Carson. And they're both great guys, and I guess I was just having fun…or just wanting to feel like, I don't know, like I actually have a  _choice_. But it made Elijah feel like I don't love him and that it was just because he's the only guy my age here that we ever got together. So…I wanted to show him that wasn't true. That he's my pick."

"Well…were you ready?"

Enid shrugs. "I don't know. What's ready?"

Carol doesn't know either. She never went as far as sex with her first boyfriend, though, in retrospect, she wishes she had, so she'd know the difference between good and bad when she married Ed. She waited until her wedding night to have sex with Ed. It hurt the first time. And it was uncomfortable the second. It got better after that, which was to say it didn't feel bad, but it didn't feel great either. It was just…routine. Then there was Daryl. She wasn't exactly  _ready_  when she went into his tent. She was scared. But that didn't matter. It was the best decision of her life. "I don't know," she says. "But listen, you don't have to keep having sex with him just because you did it twice." Carol assume it's twice, since Daryl gave Elijah two condoms. "That doesn't obligate you. It's all up to you, Enid."

"I know. But…." She smiles. "I think I better get some more condoms."

"I'll put a box on your nightstand," Carol tells her. "And I'll put six months of birth control pills on your night stand, too. You need to make sure you've been taking them for a week before you stop using the condoms. And if you forgot to take – "

"- I know. I had sex ed in high school."

"You were both virgins, so you don't have to worry about STDs, and I assume you're planning on being monogamous?"

"Yes!" Enid says defensively. "It was just one kiss under the mistletoe. And Carson has a girlfriend."

Carol pushes aside the bowl of broad beans. "Can you hand me the spinach?"

[*]

As they finish up their coffee after dinner that evening, Aaron and Jesus begin to speak of their planned trip to Croatan Beach next week.

"I'll come with," Daryl says.

"Then I'm going, too," Carol insists.

"What's the point of this?" Rick asks.

"To see if they're okay." Jesus says.

"They aren't our problem," Rick insists.

"They  _do_  have children," Michonne reminds him. "It would be good just to see. To know. And, if they  _have_  taken over Norfolk headquarters, and killed the rest of those men? It would be good to know that, too."

Rick shakes his head and sighs. He looks at Daryl. "The smokehouse is full?"

He nods. "And Dianne and Jerry can hunt while I'm gone."

"Should we bring two trucks, in case we loot a lot on the way?" Aaron asks.

"Too much gas," Rick says.

"Bring my bike," Daryl insists. "Gets better mileage, and then me 'n Carol won't be takin' up room in the pick-up. Follow behind."

Carol smiles at him. He's been itching to ride ever since the first snows fell, and now he has his excuse. She feels a tingle run up her spine and realizes she's looking forward to the ride, too.

[*]

"Where are you sneaking off to, darlin'?" Mason drawls lazily as he sits up in bed.

Dianne finishes pulling on her sweatshirt. "Hunting. It's my job."

"You can't miss one morning?"

She picks up her longbow from where it's propped against the dresser. "Don't you have to get back to Dead End anyway? Don't you have work there?"

"Oh, no, I just lounge around all day fantasizing about doing what we finally did last night."

She smiles.

"I had a good time," he says. "Did you?"

"I did."

Mason slides out of bed and pulls on his boxers and jeans. "Then why are you running off so fast?"

"I told you. I have to hunt." She leans back against the dresser. "Although now I'm curious. Do the great Weatherfords have  _jobs_? Or do the field hands do all the work?"

"I hunt. I fish. I take my turn on the watch. And I'm the trade representative."

She chuckles. "I think you do that last bit for your own pleasure."

He smiles. "Perhaps."

"And what does everyone else do?"

"My brother Garrett is a tender of vines, the master winemaker, and an all-around handyman and mechanic. It would be easier to ask what he  _doesn't_  do. Colton is a veterinarian and he keeps all the animals healthy. Dolly runs the gristmill, and of course she plays midwife when needed. My sister Henrietta does the bulk of the baking for the community. My sister-in-law Blossom does a lot of the jarring and canning. And my brother-in-law Eddie keeps the electricity running – "

"- You have  _electricity_?"

"Some of the time. In some areas."

"And what does your father do?" she asks.

"He ages. And not always gracefully."

Dianne chuckles.

"He governs. He heads the family council."

"Which you're not on," she observes. "And why is that?"

"When I returned to Dead End after the Epidemic started, I was a stranger to my own people. I hadn't seen my father in over thirty-five years. I wasn't invited to his second wedding. I'd never met Colton or Henrietta. Garrett was ten and Dolly was eight when I left home. I wrote them both for years, but only Dolly ever wrote back. She and I kept in touch, and she's visited me on and off over the years. I get along well enough with all my siblings, but I'm not close to any of them. My father merely tolerates me. Honestly, sometimes I feel more at home here at Hillcrest than I do at Dead End."

"Really?"

"You've got something special here. Something…organic. For lack of a better word." He walks over to her, puts a hand on her hip, and asks, "Are you really going hunting because you  _need_  to go hunting, or are you running away because we finally took this somewhere?"

"A little of both, possibly," she admits.

"Well then let's compromise. At least let me make you coffee before you head out."

"Okay," she agrees, and the smile that is slowly becoming more and more familiar spreads across her face.

[*]

Carol zips up her light, black leather jacket. The temperature is warming, but the wind will be cold on that bike.

"'S hot," Daryl tells her. "Where'd you get it?"

"Ask Aaron and Jesus. It came back on their pre-winter run."

He saddles his bike as Jesus slams shut the passenger side of the biggest pick-up shut. Two full, five-gallon canisters of gas rest in the bed, and one empty one, along with all their sleeping bags and some camping gear.

Carol slides on behind him and wraps her arms around him. This is his favorite part of riding, the feel of her chest against his back, her legs pressed to his.

He kicks the bike start with a roar and glides down the now dry dirt road after the pick-up.

Tara swings the gate open and waves goodbye.


	62. Chapter 62

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Just as an FYI, my novel "Off Target" (by Molly Taggart) is on sale through June 1 for 99 cents at Amazon.

The motorcycle leans into the turn off the highway and down the exit ramp. Carol tightens her arms around Daryl and breathes in the scent of smoke, leather, and the crisp early spring air. He glides onto a side road, weaves through some parked cars, and then purrs to a stop. Carol slides off the bike from behind him. Jesus and Aaron can't get the pick-up through the abandoned cars. They'll have to move a couple. But they've made good time so far. They've taken only one detour, to avoid a herd, and managed 150 miles in less than three hours.

Daryl casually slings an arm around Carol's shoulders as they walk back toward the pick-up Jesus is hopping out of. She leans into his side, grateful for the small affection, which is rare in public.

Aaron jumps down and goes around to the bed to snag a red gas can. "Might as well try to siphon some off while we're stopped."

"And check all the trunks, too," Jesus agrees.

The warmth of Daryl's arm disappears, and he flings his crossbow off his shoulders. He shoots a walker that has stumbled out from behind an abandoned semi, and then reloads as a second walker follows. Carol unsheaths her knife, strides forward, and dispenses with it.

The search of cars yields seven gallons of gas, twenty MREs from a single trunk, two bottles of booze, two handguns, a rifle, and about eighty rounds of ammo.

Before pushing cars out of the way, they decide to pause for lunch.

"Hey, handsome, your favorite," Jesus tells Aaron, tossing him an MRE of Mac N' Cheese.

"I said I  _hated_  Mac N' Cheese."

"Oh."

"You weren't listening to any of that conversation, were you?"

"I'll take the Mac," Daryl tells him.

Carol pouts. "I wanted that one."

He hands it over. "Don't care what I eat. Take the barbecue chicken sandwich."

"See," Aaron tells Jesus. "That's how it's done. Daryl is out-Casanoving you."

Jesus shakes his head and grabs an MRE. "How about an Italian Sandwich?"

[*]

Rosita wipes the oil from her hands. She turns when she feels a presence in the open doorway of the large garage. Amos is watching them. "Is she being of service, Garret?" he asks.

Garret nods.

Amos takes a few steps inside. "I saw Carson and Elizabeth heading off alone together toward the stream. Thought you ought to know."

Garrett shrugs.

"You aren't concerned about his interest in her?"

"They ar-ar- _aren't_  blood."

"True enough. But I can't vouch for how well Mason's raised that boy."

"I'm sure he's raised him just fine," Rosita interjects, trying to control her tone. "Mason's a good man."

"That might be so," Amos says. "But he doesn't have much family feeling. Not like Garret here. Who stayed and helped me run this place. Right, Garret?"

Garret nods but turns back to his work. He returns his attention to his father when Amos says, "Council meeting this afternoon. We have a trial. Rape."

"H-h-Who?" Garret asks.

"Miguel. Paula lodged the accusation. So be in the house by three."

Garret nods.

As soon as Amos is gone, Rosita asks, "Does that happen often?" Javier said men outnumbering women was a "problem," but she wasn't thinking it was  _this_  kind of problem. Of course, they'd all had to deal with a rape happening once at the Hilltop, too. The man had been caught in the act by two witnesses, however, and pulled off the woman. One of those witnesses was Maggie. She'd simply shot the man, herself, without ceremony. The quickness and callousness with which she carried out the act caused a stir in some quarters, but, soon enough, things settled back to normal.

Garret holds up two fingers.

"This is the second time?"

Garret nods.

"The first time it happened – what did you do with the man?"

"B-B-ban-"

"Banishment?"

He nods again. "I would have ex-ex-executed him. B-b-but the v-v-vote was th-th-three to t-t-wo."

"How long ago?"

"T-t-two years."

Garret has three daughters age seventeen to twenty-one. He probably wasn't happy that they merely wanted to banish the rapist. So Rosita takes a gamble. "Well, if  _Javier_  had been on that Council," she tells him casually, "I'm sure he'd have been on  _your_  side." She goes back to work, hoping the seed plants itself.

[*]

Enid traces a heart on Elijah's bare chest, and he smiles. They're behind the privacy of her closed door in her double bed and have managed to use not one, not two, but  _three_  condoms this afternoon. She's glad Carol gave her the pills, and that they won't need condoms soon, because she sure doesn't want to have to admit how much sex they're having. "It's like potato chips," she says.

"What?"

"Sex. It's hard to have just one."

He chuckles.

"I should really go downstairs and help Ezekiel and Nabila with the cooking," she says.

"Yeah. And I'm supposed to collect and burn the trash."

She settles her head on his shoulder. "We will. In ten minutes."

Enid is just about to doze off when Elijah says, "Hey, should we get married?"

She bolts upright. " _What?_ "

"Uh….Just…you know."

"Know. I  _don't_  know. We're so  _young_."

"Yeah. Of course. Forget I mentioned it."

She sighs. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound so negative. It's just…we're young, right?"

"Yeah, but…I mean…why not? Are you keeping your options open? In case Carson and Elizabeth break up?"

" _No_!" she insists.

"Then…why not?"

"It just seems…young. And too soon. Ask me again in a year or two." She lays back down again.

He drapes his other arm around her. "Okay."

"And make it like…a  _real_  proposal when you do."

[*]

The pick-up rumbles past a green sign reading "Croatan Beach…15 miles," and the motorcycle whizzes after it, weaving its way around two grasping walkers in the road.

Despite passing by Norfolk, they haven't encountered any living people. If their attackers are still headquartered somewhere in the city, they don't have patrols searching for trespassers along the highways. The pick-up turns off onto a side road. "Where are they going?" Carol shouts from behind Daryl.

He turns down the road and then cranes his neck back. Voice raised, he says, "That naval air station, maybe." The planes are in view in the distance now. "Gas." The jet fuel can be used in their diesel truck back home if they add a lubricant to it, and the airport may have a lot of ground vehicles with unleaded gasoline as well.

She nods, and he swerves to the side, revs the bike, and flies past Aaron and Jesus.


	63. Chapter 63

Carol shields her eyes against the sun and peers up at the air traffic control tower as Daryl revs inside the air station. He purrs to a stop outside an open hangar. Carol quickly unsaddles the bike and swings her AR-15 off her shoulder. Two walkers stumble about inside. She picks off one as it lurches forward and feels a sense of satisfaction as its body jerks and then slumps to the ground. Daryl holds his crossbow casually in one hand but doesn't fire as she swivels her rifle left to shoot the other creature.

By now, Aaron and Jesus have parked the pick-up and have strolled to a stop beside them. Carol walks forward and kicks one of the walkers the rest of the way onto its back. Daryl, standing beside her, looks it over. "Fresh turned. Less 'n six months." He walks over to the other walker and examines it. "Both been shot twice. They was killed and left to turn."

They search the hangar only to find that the black drums of gasoline for the ground vehicles have been hauled off – except one that was lodged behind three rows of red drums of jet fuel.

Aaron hops onto one of the loose baggage dolly carts and starts it. He makes a loop about the hangar and comes to a stop beside the others before turning it off. "These are in working order, if we want one."

"Hell would we use it for?" Daryl asks. "Golfin'?"

Aaron shrugs.

"'S check if the shift out there starts." Daryl nods outside the hangar, where a few vehicles are parked on the runway between the planes.

Carol stands guard while the rest examine the potential loot. Based on the tracks, Daryl judges that most of the vehicles have been driven off already by whoever shot the men in the hangar, but they do find a functioning refueler truck that is full of jet fuel. "You drive the pick-up home," Jesus tells Aaron. "And I'll take this. We can probably use it in the diesel truck. If not, we can use it for heat in the winters."

"I wonder if any of these planes work," Aaron says.

"Know how to fly one?" Daryl asks.

"No."

"Then the hell's it matter for?" He walks on and climbs into a truck with a liftable trailer. It starts. He turns it off and jumps out.

"Are you driving that home while I take the motorcycle, Pookie?" Carol asks with a twinkle in her eye.

"No.  _Yer_  drivin' it while  _I_  take the motorcycle."

She pouts. "I need to be practice riding on my own."

He narrows his eyes at her.

She bats her eyelashes. "Pretty please?"

"I better get a good blowjob outta this."

She laughs.

"And don't put a scratch on 'er."

"I'll try not to," she assures him. "I might get a little walker blood on it, though. But that just adds character."

They load up the trailer with the black drum of gasoline and several more drums of jet fuel. Then they make their way inside the main building. Carol covers her face with her arm and stumbles back when the putrid scent of dead bodies hits her nostrils. Daryl flicks the red handkerchief out of his back pocket and hands to her. She ties it around her nose and mouth. Jesus and Aaron pull up their shirts to cover their faces, but Daryl just presses on, his mouth tightly closed and his nose crinkled.

Cots and mattresses are strewn across the floor of the lobby, as well as scattered clothing and backpacks that have been turned over and emptied. Bodies lay on the beds, shot in the head, executed in their sleep. Carol thinks of their own attack on the slumbering Saviors, of that day that stirred the hornet's nest and eventually ended in so very many losses. She wonders, sometimes, what their lives would have been like if they had turned down the Hilltop's offer of trading mercenary services for food, if they would all be vassals of the Saviors today, but  _living_  ones, settled in Alexandria, still strangers to the people of the Kingdom….or if they would have slowly starved to death trying to feed both their own and their masters.

"Do you think this was the headquarters?" Jesus asks. "Of the people who attacked us? Do you think Oceanside found them and did this?"

"Dunno," Daryl replies. "Could be. Think they been dead a few months. Since 'bout the time you found Oceanside cleared out." He prowls among the bodies, peers in the backpacks, and examines the sign. "Whoever it was took all the guns 'n ammo. Any food, too."

"Let's clear all the rooms," Carol says. "And count the beds and the bodies."

In their search of the rest of the building, they find four large cardboard boxes of MREs, canned food, and various other supplies sitting just inside an exit door. "Looks like whoever did this forgot some," Aaron says.

"Or they're coming back for it," Carol suggests, and her hands tighten on her AR-15 as her eyes dart around.

"Them bodies been dead awhile," Daryl says. "Think they'd of come back by now if they was gonna."

When they're done with their search, they discover far more beds than bodies. "If they're the ones who attacked us," Carol speculates, "And this is the headquarters…And we count the ones we killed at the Hilltop, and the ones Oceanside killed in the three attacks on them, and the ones Dead End killed, and the bodies here…." She looks up as she adds the numbers together. "It about matches the beds. I think they've been completely wiped out."

"Then let's hope it  _was_  Oceanside who did the wiping out," Aaron says nervously.

"Let's load up those boxes," Carol suggests. "And move on to Croatan Beach. See if we can find any trace of them."

[*]

Dianne has just been relieved on the rear watch by Maggie, who insists on "pulling her weight," despite the baby and the missing foot, when she sees Mason's old school little red pick-up rumbling up the hill. He's not coming to trade – not if he just left this morning – and not if he's bringing that little thing. Her heart seizes a minute for fear something has happened to Rosita, but when he hops out, he has flowers in his hand and a smile on his face.

He mounts the porch stairs and hands them to her. It's an eclectic bouquet of pansies, hibiscus, and some blue, star-shaped flowers she doesn't know the name of. "Fresh from Dead End's greenhouse," he says.

"Seems like a bit of a luxury to be using up room in the greenhouse to grow flowers."

"Most women just say thank you when presented with an offering of affection."

She smiles, sniffs the flowers and says, "Thank you."

"And they are edible, by the by. Refreshing in cocktails, and a little bit can spruce up a salad. I should make you some hibiscus sparkling wine one of these days."

"I'd like that. Did you come just to bring me these?"

He leans back against the porch railing facing her. "Well, I think I left my hat in your bedroom."

"So you came all the way back here to get it?"

"Guess I might as well stay for dinner while I'm here. And by then it'll be dark…" He looks at her hopefully.

"You want to spend the night again?"

"If you're amenable to the idea."

"Two nights in a row?" she asks. "You won't be missed?"

"I doubt my father ever misses me at his table."

"You've got Daddy issues," she tells him, but she jerks her head toward the screen door of the Bed and Breakfast, and he follows her inside.

[*]

Amos looks around the table. "Where the hell is Mason?"

Rosita still hasn't quite gotten used to eating regularly with the family, but Javier is always at Amos's table, and she considers that a good thing. It means he's very close to being in the inner circle, even if he's not on the Council.

"He's at Hillcrest for the night, Pa," Dolly says.

"Again?"

"Well, you won't let anyone come here, so, what do you expect?" Dolly tells him.

"I expect him to put his family before whatever stranger woman he's taken a fancy to."

Rosita shifts uncomfortably. As much she's been trying to settle in, she's aware she was once one of those  _stranger women_  in Amos's eyes. She still half is, and may be no matter how long she lives here.

"He came home today, sir," Javier says. "He hunted this waterfowl we're eating."

"Hmmm…." Amos sips his wine. He cocks his head at Dolly. "You planning to find yourself a man over there, too?"

Garret catches Dolly's eye but doesn't say anything. Rosita has figured out – and confirmed in pillow talk with Javier - that Dolly's never had an interest in  _men_ , that all her siblings know it, but that her father doesn't.

"No, Pa. But I  _do_  intend to midwife that baby. And I might as well tell you now. I've been over there three times."

"Three?"

"Javier and Rosita's wedding wasn't my first time there. Mason brought me to meet with Michonne – "

"- Against  _my_  wishes he did?"

"- According to  _my_  wishes. I'm a middle-aged woman, Pa. I'm not fourteen."

Amos wipes his mouth, throws his cloth napkin on the table, and says, "Sharper than a serpent's tooth! All these thankless children. I build this place to withstand even an apocalypse. And y'all come  _running_  back here when the shit hits the fan without so much as a  _thank you_. Except Garrett, who was the only one  _both_  loyal enough to stay here  _and_  smart enough to stay alive."

"I only left because I had to go to veterinary school," Colton reminds him.

"And I just moved to Bluemont because most of Eddie's work was in town," Henrietta ads.

"And Cooper and I stayed at Dead End," Candy reminds him. "Cooper never left. Except for that…" Her eyes grow perturbed. "So-called  _hunting trip_."

Javier and Rosita exchange glances, and his eyes caution her not to say anything.

"But Cooper's dead," Amos tells her, "and now your Garret's. And we all know it wasn't your smarts that kept you alive, honey. Or your smarts  _either_  of my sons married you for."

"P- _pa_!" Garret hisses.

Amos holds up his hand. "I'll say no more. I just think a thank you would be nice, from time to time, for all that I've given my children. For all that I have built here for them." He stands and his chair scrapes back. His boots echo on the hardwood floors as he plods out of the dining room.

"Did you  _have_  to push his buttons, Dolly?" Colton asks when he's gone.

"Let's be fair. His buttons are easy to push," his wife says. "The only reason he let you marry me was that you knocked me up in high school."

Henrietta sighs, and her husband pours her another glass of wine. "This family has always been a hot mess," Eddie says. When Henrietta rolls her eyes at him, he smiles. "Excepting my own wife of course."

"Why don't you stand up for me more?" Candy asks Garret, her blonde hair bobbing with annoyance. "Like a man!"

"I d-did."

"All you said was  _pa_."

"Because he can't," Dolly says. "Because Pa gave up when the first speech therapist didn't work, and he never hired another one. He said it was sham, but I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to make sure at least one of us never left Dead End."

Garret shakes his head.

"Garret, you're smart," Dolly tells him. "You could have accomplished so many things – "

"L—l-ike it here," interrupts Garret, a glare in his eyes. "G-got my girls. M-make g-good wine. F-f-ix stuff."

"Garret's great with the vehicles," Rosita offers, "He's been teaching me, frankly."

Garret's lip twitches into a smile at Rosita, while Javier looks at Rosita warily

"I'm sorry," Dolly apologizes. "I didn't mean to belittle what you've accomplished here, either."

Javier pushes his plate aside. "We should be getting back," he tells her.

When they're walking back later, he says, "What are you trying to do here, hermosa?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're so nice to Garret. You have been for days now. And you aren't usually  _nice_."

"Gee, thanks."

He reaches over and slides a hand in the back pocket of her blue jeans and draws her nearer. He bends his head slightly, and in a low whisper, says, "What are you up to, my gorgeous Machiavelli?"

"Garret's going to be the one who gets you on that Council when Amos dies. You should be nice to him, too."

"Unlike you, hermosa, I'm nice to  _everyone_."

She twists out away from him, and his hand slides out of her pocket. He laughs and slaps her on the ass.

She takes his hand and walks holding it. "You're not nice to anyone," she says. "You're  _just_  to everyone.  _Nice_  is a different ballpark. And when you treat everyone equally, no one feels special."

"You don't feel special, mi amor?"

"I didn't mean  _me_. I meant Garret."

"You want me to bring him flowers?" Javier asks.

She rolls her eyes languidly toward him.

"I'll be nice to Garret," he promises. "But I'm not kissing his ass. Don't try to make me into a sycophant. You wouldn't want to fuck me if you did."

"You're probably right about that," she admits.

He pulls his hand out of hers and wraps an arm around her. "But you do want to, no?" He smirks.

She smirks back. "Only if you can catch me before I shut the door on you." She races forward toward their suite, Javier fast on her heels.

[*]

Daryl slides the last box on the trailer. "Do you hear that?" Carol asks.

She turns in the direction of the sound in the sky, shields her eyes with a hand, and looks up. In the far distance, a helicopter is approaching, its propellers beating the air with a growing whop-whop-whop.

From the other side of the trailer, Aaron says, "What…the…holy…."

"- Hell," Jesus concludes.

Weapons fly off of shoulders and all four duck behind the front end of the truck as the helicopter approaches the landing pad on the top of the building.


	64. Chapter 64

Carol squats, mostly obscured by the front of the truck, but peering out just enough to be able to use her binoculars to scour the rooftop as the doors of the helicopter fly open and two armed people spill out. She catches their legs first, but as she begins to draw her sight up, they vanish, stomach down, perhaps, on the roof. She can't make them out above the cement lip of the roof. The roar of the helicopter has stopped, but the blades continue to spin slowly to a stop.

Carol ducks back fully behind the truck with the others. "I think we've been spotted."

"How many?" Daryl asks.

"Just two. But I don't think we want to expose ourselves, in case they start shooting."

"Should we wait them out?" Aaron asks.

"I'm not sure – "

Carol is interrupted by a voice from a bullhorn: "Come out with your weapons down and your hands up, or we'll open fire."

Aaron looks at Jesus. "I know that voice. That's  _Beatrice_."

"It's Oceanside?" Carol asks.

Aaron grins, stands, and leaves his gun on the ground. Hands up, he rounds the truck and shouts, "Beatrice! It's Aaron! Aaron and Carol and Daryl and Jesus!"

[*]

Mason twirls Dianne's hair around his finger and then lets it unravel. They're lying side by side in bed, each propped up on an elbow. "I love it when you let your hair down for me."

"Who said it was for you?"

He looks to left of the bed, then to the right, then back at her eyes. "Who else is it for?"

She laughs. "You know, you're pretty spry for an old man. I didn't think you'd be back to pester me for sex for at least three days."

"Well, it's like potato chips. Don't eat any for months and months, and you don't miss them, but taste just one…" He smiles. "I don't quite recover like I did in my youth, though. You're going to have to wait until the morning until the next round."

She chuckles, leans in, and kisses him.

"Dinner time in five minutes!" Enid shouts from the hallway, and they slide themselves out of bed to wash up and dress.

[*]

As Aaron and Jesus surmised, Oceanside had booby trapped its camp to kill the attackers when they arrived. They moved on, found the attacker's headquarters, and wiped out the men in their sleep. Some woke up part way through the attack, and Oceanside lost two women in the fray. But the enemy was eliminated.

"So you left Croatan carved on that tree to tell us where you were?" Aaron asks.

They're all sitting in the hangar now, at a metal picnic table that must have been used for breaks.

"No," Cyndie, who was with Beatrice, replies. "We left it to tell our supply runners where we were. We'd already decided to pack up camp, but we were still debating between three locations. We were booby trapping the place while two of our runners left to get us some additional supplies for the road. We were planning to leave as soon as they got back. But they never did get back. Eventually we moved on with our plan, and we left them that note."

"Did they ever find you?" Carol asks.

Cyndie's eyes glisten. "No. But we're still hoping they're out there. That's why we've been searching with the helicopter."

"I used to be a helicopter pilot," Beatrice explains. "It took us awhile to get that thing working, but we finally did a month ago. We're settled, but we've been coming back here to gather and haul supplies and work on the chopper. Once we got it going, we started taking it out to search the area. But we can only go about a hundred and fifty miles in any direction before we need to return to refuel."

"And what did you find?" Carol asks.

"We know where some big herds of walkers are." Cyndie says. "If your people are still in northern Virginia, you should know there's one migrating north from Richmond on I-95."

Carol catches Daryl's eye. They got off the interstate several miles before Richmond because of too many abandoned cars, and they worked their way to Norfolk on back roads. It's a relief to think they avoided the herd, but concerning to think it could be headed toward Hillcrest. "How big?" Carol asks.

"Easily three thousand," Cyndie replies.

Jesus whistles.

"Still a ways from us," Daryl says. "And it ain't like I-95 goes right by the vineyard. But we better keep an eye on it. Send out scouts. Track the progress."

"And let Dead End know," Carol agrees.

"Did you find any people?" Aaron asks.

"We found a camp at Monticello in Charlottesville," Beatrice replies.

"Home of Thomas Jefferson," Jesus explains to Daryl.

Daryl glowers. "Know that. Ain't ignorant." He hadn't known that, actually, but it annoys him that Jesus would  _assume_  he didn't.

"Men, women, and children," Beatrice continues. "Maybe forty that we saw. But the men just shot at us with rifles and shotguns as we approached, so we got the hell out of there. Took a few bullets in the chopper, but no major damage, fortunately."

"We found a camp of people living on house boats in Nags Head," Cyndie says, "but they just shot at us, too. I guess that's what the world has come to. Shoot first. Ask questions later."

"There was one group that flagged us down, though," Beatrice says. "A small camp outside of Roanoke – a man and his seven wives."

" _Seven_ wives?" Daryl asks.

Carol thinks of Negan. "How willing were they?"

"They wanted his protection and skills," Cyndie replies. "And he was hunting and fishing for all of them, and protecting them from walkers, in exchange for laundry, cooking, and sex. But when we came, and they saw there were other options…." She shrugs. "Three of them asked to come back with us. The other four were suspicious of us and chose to stay with him. We didn't argue."

"He didn't fight you when you took his wives?" Jesus asks.

Beatrice shakes her head. "He just let them go."

"Probably henpecked enough," Daryl mutters.

Carol raises an eyebrow at him.

"Just sayin'. Hard enough to please  _one_  woman."

"I wouldn't dig any deeper if I were you," Aaron warns him.

[*]

The Oceanside women insist on taking back the cardboard boxes of supplies they left inside the door of the main building. They want the fuel tanker, too, to keep the helicopter going, but they offer to let the trailer with the drums of jet fuel go. "We do want that one drum of gasoline, though," Cyndie says.

"Nah uh," Daryl mutters. "Finders keepers."

" _We_  found this place."

"Didn't find that drum, though."

" _Fine_ ," she spits. "I guess we've got plenty back home."

Cyndie and Beatrice take them back to their camp and let them stay the night. It's a far cry from the beach bungalows they once inhabited. Oceanside has taken over eight McMansions in an upper-middle class subdivision behind an iron gate. However, the development is a stone's throw from the beach, where they have boats and fishing equipment. The houses have a limited amount of electricity thanks to solar panels on the roofs, but running water is a problem, so they still bathe in the ocean and keep drums of fresh water they've scavenged for drinking and cooking. The toilets still flush, though they don't refill, so they throw sea water in the tanks. "I don't know how long that will work, so we'll have to figure out something for sanitation eventually," Cyndie says. "But it's nice set up."

They feast on fresh fish that night, and Daryl and Carol's group share the booze they looted on the way down. Now that it looks like the threat of the attackers is gone, they share where their camp is located, so Oceanside can join them if ever anything happens to their new location. "Like a hurricane," Jesus says.

"And our doors are open to you as well," Cyndie says. "If you're ever  _desperate_."

"Really?" Carol asks skeptically.

"I suppose if you were going to try to extort us or wipe us out," Cyndie reasons, "you would have by now."

"This other camp you're trading with," one of the Oceanside women asks. "Are there single men there?"

Beatrice gives her a warning glare.

"What?" she asks. "it's been a long,  _long_  time."

"If we send someone to trade later this spring," Aaron tells her, "we'll be sure to send Jerry and Morgan."

When the meal is complete, they talk for a while, and eventually Carol and Daryl retire to a guest room in one of the McMansions, their way lit by Daryl's flashlight, fresh linens in Carol's hands.


	65. Chapter 65

Carol awakes in an unfamiliar bed to the familiar feel of Daryl's morning erection against the small of her back. Through the open window a gentle spring breeze drifts, and the salty scent of the ocean trickles in. Beyond the iron fence that encases the subdivision, she can hear the distant lapping of the waves against the shore.

His lips tickle the back of her neck in tender kisses. He's gauging if she's awake and if she's willing. To show him she is, she pushes her bottom back against his erection, and a low hiss escapes his mouth, his breath hot on the flesh at the nape of her neck.

Daryl slides his hand under her t-shirt, and the lovemaking picks up from there. Progressing from feathered strokes and faint sighs to hungry thrusts and throaty groans until both are spent and sucking in the salty air with each recovering breath.

When Daryl's chest begins to still its rising and falling, Carol snuggles in with her head beneath his chin, and his fingers settle at the back of her head. He toys with the lengthening silver strands at the nape of her neck.

"I need a haircut," she says.

"Like it."

"You want me to grow it long?"

He's suddenly silent, as if he thinks this might be a pop quiz and one wrong answer could cause him to fail.

She laughs. "I might grow it out for a while. If it gets too annoying, or I don't like it, I'll cut it short again."

"Mhmhm," is all he'll say.

She kisses his bare shoulder and pulls back to look at him. His blue eyes softly search hers and he gives a little tender, half-smile that's almost sad.

"Is something wrong?" she asks.

"Everything's too damn good."

"That's a bad thing?"

"Oceanside's okay – only a few losses," he says. "Ain't no more attackers left. Made it through the winter. Spring crop's comin' in. Got food in storage. Got a bunch of gas and fuel to bring home. At peace with Dead End. I got the best damn wife a man can ask for. Everything's so damn good. Feels like I'm just waitin' for the other shoe to drop."

"I feel it too," she says, caressing the sinews of one of his arms. "But maybe that's just something we're going to have to learn to live with, something we'll always feel in this world. And maybe it's for the best we do, so we're ready for whatever comes. But maybe…maybe we should just let ourselves be happy for a while until it does." She kisses his shoulder. "And who knows, maybe we've dropped so many shoes now that there's not a shoe left to drop."

He raises his head up from the pillow to kiss her, a hand at the back of her head, pushing her closer. They're interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Breakfast," calls Jesus. "Then the road."

Daryl sighs.

Carol smirks. "At least he's learned to knock."

[*]

Dianne tips Mason's cowboy hat up on her head as she sits up against the headboard.

"Looks good on you," he says as he twist to face her and the sheet falls to his waist. "Especially when you're wearing nothing else."

"Ready for another round, cowboy?" He opens his mouth to reply, but she can tell from his expression he's nowhere near ready. "Nevermind."

He sighs. "You should have gotten yourself one of the thirty-year-old field hands over at Dead End instead."

"Well, there's still time."

He glowers, and she smirks.

"I hope I'm not the starter boyfriend," he says. "The one who finally gets you back in the saddle, but once you remember you love riding, you go and find a better horse."

"That's a terrible analogy."

"I never claimed to be a poet," he says. "But I like you, Dianne. More than I expected to."

"You were just playing at first?" she asks.

"Maybe."

"Well, I like you too," she replies. " _Considerably_  more than I expected to."

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult."

She laughs and kisses his nose. "Go make me coffee. I'll be down in a bit and we can go hunt some birds. That is, if you don't have to get home."

"I don't have watch until late afternoon. As long as I come back with a couple of birds, I think I'll stay out of hot water." He slides out of bed and jerks on his boxers and then his jeans. When he turns, she admires the taut muscles of his abdomen as he buckles his belt, and finally asks about the scar that crawls its way from his navel to his side.

"Got attacked," he replies as he pulls on his white undershirt and then slips a long sleeve, blue denim button down over it. "On the road. On my way to get my boy to Dead End. The man cut me good, but I won that fight and killed him. Then Carson had to stitch me up. He fainted halfway through it, and I had to finish it myself."

"I sometimes forget you haven't always had it easy at Dead End."

"Darlin'," he says as he plucks his cowboy hat off her head and sets it on his own, "I've  _never_  had it easy at Dead End."

[*]

Because Oceanside has reclaimed the fuel tanker, Jesus slides into the trailer truck and Aaron into the pick-up, while Daryl and Carol head to his bike.

"You promised to let me practice," she reminds him.

"Ain't sittin' behind ya like a girl."

"Then get in with Jesus or Aaron. Because I'm riding this bike."

He bites his lip, which has formed into a partial snarl. He's not sure which is going to feel worse – riding in back like a girl, or having to watch her maneuver the bike from inside the pick-up, afraid she might wipe out and hurt herself.

"I can see what's going on in that head of yours," she says. "I'll be  _fine_. It's not my first time."

"Yer first time ya wiped out. Scraped up yer leg."

"And now I've learned how  _not_  to do that. But it's nice to know you're more concerned about me scraping my leg than me scraping your bike."

He doesn't want her scraping the bike either. He shifts on one foot.

"You already promised."

He'd growled  _fine_ when he thought they'd have four vehicles and everyone would have to drive one. He's not sure that's the same as a  _promise_. "Fine," he mutters. "'M gonna ride with Aaron."

[*]

As usual, Javier is already awake and at work when Rosita drags herself out of bed. He must sleep no more than five hours a day, because sometimes she still finds him pouring over the ledgers or his agricultural reference books in the middle of the night. That's the thing that has surprised her the most - how  _conscientious_  he is.

She'd mostly known his playful and passionate sides at Hillcrest, not this  _diligent_  one. He's still intermittently playful and passionate, especially in bed, but this working side is something she hasn't entirely adjusted to. Rosita admires his work ethic, but sometimes she thinks he's a little  _too_  driven. Mostly, though, she doesn't understand why he doesn't have a place on the Council.

The Weatherfords all work - even the old man. They aren't lazy, indulgent aristocrats living off the backs of their servants - they have jobs just like everyone else - but it's Javier who runs the operational side of the farm, even while getting his hands dirty alongside his workers. It's Javier who sweats the most to build the life they all enjoy here. And yet he merely reports to the Council rather than heading it as she thinks he should.

All the laws that govern Dead End - the curfew, the rules about coming and going and checking out vehicles, the allotment of rations, the water use and electrical use regulations - they come down from a Council on which not a single person living in these servants' quarters sits. Not even Mason is on the Council, and he, too, has a room here in these quarters, though Rosita seldom sees him in it. He spends many of his hours at Hillcrest these days.

Rosita mulls this over as she heads to the breakroom for breakfast. When she enters, the kids who were watching cartoons on DVD on the TV immediately shut it off. They must have already exceeded their quota for the morning and think they'll be in trouble with her. "I won't tell," she assures them, but they aren't buying it. They wash their empty bowls of cereal and scurry from the room, away to their small jobs.

She's first to the garage. It's oil changes on three pick-ups today, which will mean she'll have to find some other way to fill her afternoon. Amos won't let her stand watch yet, not until she's earned her place and he trusts her more. Maybe she'll reload some ammunition. Amos  _will_  ironically let her do that, though she smiles to think of Eugene's double-cross of the Saviors. If she  _were_  trying to take over Dead End from within, she'd start with the bullets.

But she's not. At least…not entirely, and not violently. But she  _is_  determined to see Amos's power stripped slowly from him and re-distributed to other people, and especially to the man who shares her bed.

[*]

Carol rides cautiously at first, in front of Jesus in the trailer and behind Daryl and Aaron in the pick-up. She can see Daryl watching her in the rearview mirror, like a concerned schoolmaster. He has the window down and one tanned arm hanging out, but his eyes are fixed on that mirror.

In a few miles, she gains confidence, picks up speed, swerves to the right, and shoots by Daryl's open passenger window. "Slow down!" he shouts, but she ignores him.

[*]

Rosita rolls out from underneath the truck when she hears Garrett come in the garage. She stands and cleans her hands with a rag. "I've already finished this one." She nods to the second truck. "You take that one?"

He nods.

"And I'll take the third. We'll be done in no time."

Garret opens his tool box on his cart.

"You know," she tells him, "one of my brothers used to have a stutter. The youngest one. He was only three years older than me, so I still remember all the speech exercises my mom used to do with him. He got over it completely in just a year."

Garret ducks his head and rummages through the tools.

Rosita knows she's taking a bit of a risk here. She could ingratiate herself, or she could offend him. "I could do some of the exercises with you.  _If_  you want. When we're taking breaks." She half holds her breath as she awaits his response.

Garret nods.

[*]

They take a slightly different route home, looking for promising places to loot. In the parking lot of a strip mall in a sleepy suburb, Carol skids the bike to an aburpt stop. She slides forward hard and fast as she accidentally jerks the handlebar into one breast. Carol swallows her  _ouch_  and pretends not to be hurt as she dismounts.

Daryl leaps from the passenger side of the pick-up and paces over, grumbling, "Slow down sooner next time when yer gonna stop."

"I stopped just fine," she insists, resisting the urge to massage her aching breast.

He looks her up and down through half-dropped eyelids. "Ya did a'ight ridin' on yer own," he admits.

"I'm getting the hang of it," she says, pride tinging her voice. It still feels strange, to feel proud of herself. Some small part of her still expects to be slapped down for her conceit.

But Daryl isn't Ed. He asks, with a hint of awe in his voice, "How ya always learn shit so damn fast?"

She shrugs. Carol's always been a quick learner by nature, but there were a hundred things Ed wouldn't even let her  _try_.

Aaron's door to the pick-up slams shut, and the brakes of the trailer truck hiss as Jesus pulls it to a stop in the middle of the street. Soon, both men have joined them in the parking lot, and Jesus nods over Carol and Daryl's shoulders. They turn to see an approaching walker. It's still a good way off, so Daryl readies his crossbow without much urgency and dispenses with it when it's closer.

But soon there's a second and a third walker stumbling out from around the back of the edge of the strip mall, and then a fourth and a fifth, so Carol has to help out. She draws her knife gracefully and stabs two with a quick thrust, jerk-back-out, and re-thrust. A jolt of adrenaline floods her veins. The rush feels good, better than it should, but it's been awhile. She's almost glad when three more creatures spill out from around the corner, but not when another  _eight_  more do, and still more after that.

Aaron and Jesus join the slaying now, with rifle and handgun, picking the undead off one by one as they stream like ants from around the corner. Daryl walks back into Carol, nudging her with his shoulder to indicate they should be ready to run. He sends off an arrow, and she sheaths her knife and unshoulders her AR-15, backing toward the motorcycle as she shoots.

But before she reaches it, the undead creatures stop coming. Bodies begin to litter the parking lot like so much cast off debris.

Daryl nods to Aaron and then jerks his head silently toward the end of the building. The two men jog off to investigate while Carol and Jesus remain poised in the parking lot. There are two muffled shots around the back of the brick building, and then nothing. The men return to report there are no more walkers. "They was feastin' on a dead deer over there," Daryl says. "'S why there were so many. But we got 'em all."

"The looting may begin," Aaron announces.

Carol shoulders her rifle, wraps an arm around Daryl's waist, and says, "I love it when you take me shopping, Pookie."


	66. Chapter 66

Spring robins chirp in the scarlet oak trees that line the dirt road leading down from the inn. Mason slings his catch of quail into the bed of his old-fashioned pick-up and snaps the little red tailgate closed. "You're impressive with that bow," he tells Dianne, "but I still think it's more efficient to hunt with a shotgun."

She smirks. "Well, my people won't have to dig around shot for their meal." She has her own string of quail slung over her shoulder.

"Oh, but that's half the fun of eating it, darlin'." He bends to kiss her.

"When will I see you again?" she asks when he stands straight again.

"You're going to miss me, aren't you?"

She shrugs. "Maybe."

"Our streams come back to life for the spring, and we've got a big fishing expedition tomorrow, and a fish fry to follow...but I reckon I might be able to come up the day after that with those chicks we promised you. They're already hatched. You'll just have to keep them fed and raise them up, and soon enough, they'll be laying for y'all."

They kiss one last time before he tosses his shotgun into the front passenger seat and slides behind the wheel.

[*]

The looters start at the far end of the strip mall, and Jesus and Aaron walk right past the tutoring center, but Carol pauses at a peeling sign on the window advertising a jump start on your SAT's. She sighs heavily. Daryl pauses beside her and searches her face tenderly.

"All the plans people made," she says. "All those kids putting in hours after school to catch up or get ahead, not knowing the world was just going to end and it would all be wasted."

"Gotta live like the world ain't gonna end," Daryl replies. "Or shit won't never get done."

She laughs through her nose. "Leave it to you to simplify things."

"'S why we're lootin' right? World could end tomorrow, and hell would be the point of this?"

"Well, it  _is_ fun," Carol says and walks on, her AR-15 swinging loosely from her shoulder. "It's my favorite part of the apocalypse, really."

"Mine's gettin' to be with you." He says it so matter-of-factly, not as if he's flirting at all. The words fall from his mouth like some indisputable truth he's pulling out of his fact box.

Carol thinks the smile may have taken over her face, and she tries to suppress it to make sure she doesn't look too goofy. Jesus and Aaron are already inside the Subway sandwich shop, having merely walked through the door, which was already ajar. Some previous looters clearly shattered the front windows and came out the door.

The two men come out shaking their heads and crinkling their noses against the scent of long-putrid milk. "Nothing salvageable," Jesus reports.

They move on to a Hallmark shop with a dusty, dirt-caked dark red  _Going Out of Business_  clearance sign in the window. The shop hasn't been touched, and they don't bother with it either, though Carol gazes through the windows and thinks of all the Christmas cards she used to mail out every year to people she rarely saw, with a happy, perky third-person family letter inserted inside. The facts were always true, but the mood was a lie:

_The Peletiers have had another great year! Sophia is growing like a weed and has begun to toddle. She said her first word this year, "Dada," which left her with a beaming papa. Ed has more reason to beam this year – he received a promotion to assistant manager at the liquor store. Meanwhile, Carol continues to needlepoint her growing collection of the great houses of Georgia._

"Ya a'ight?" Daryl asks.

She startles from her reverie. It still surprises her sometimes, the way Daryl can read her like he's reading sign in the forest. "Mhm," she says. "Fine."

He doesn't press.

Jesus is now pounding on the window of a dentist's office and waiting to see if any walkers gather. Daryl leans back on the window ledge and fiddles with his bow.

"No one thought to loot this," Aaron observes. "There may still be medicine inside."

Carol leans shoulder to shoulder next to Daryl and crosses her arms over her chest. He stops fiddling and says, "Wish I had some of Mason's smokes left."

"Maybe you'll find something to trade him in here."

When five minutes pass and nothing stirs, Aaron begins his assault on the glass with a nearby brick. The window is well designed, and he eventually gives up, while Carol walks around him, turns the old-fashioned standard knob of the door, and swings it open. "You didn't think to check first?"

Jesus and Aaron catch each other's eyes with accusation, while Daryl snorts, walks around them, and follows Carol inside.

The place has been largely cleared out, maybe by the dentists themselves, but they do find two emergency kits full of oral glucose gel, aspirin, aerosol inhalers, adrenaline injections, and Epipens, probably kept in event of an allergic reaction. "We could trade the Epipens and inhalers to Dead End," Jesus reasons. "They have a kid there who's allergic to bee stings and another with asthma."

"We should keep a couple Epipens for ourselves, though," Carol reasons. "We don't know what Gracie or Judith might be allergic to yet. Or Rick and Michonne's new baby, when it comes." Michonne hasn't had anymore scares since the spotting, and Carol hopes everything proceeds smoothly for her. She's a bit nervous for her friends.

"Do you think the medicines even work anymore?" Aaron asks.

"Expiration dates don't mean shit," Daryl says, and it's true, but it's always a gamble whether a drug will work or not. Still, a gamble is better than nothing.

On the way out, Daryl scoops up the large canister of lollipops on the checkout counter.

"That seems rather ironic for a dentist," Jesus observes.

[*]

Rosita sits across from Garret at the picnic table just outside the garage and takes a sip form her water bottle as he bites into his sandwich. That's one of the many advantages of Dead End, she thinks – bread. With the gristmill for flour, the fresh butter they make, and all the yeast they looted from grocery stores at the start, they have fresh baked bread here. Henrietta spends four hours a day making loaves for the entire camp.

"So whatever happened with the trial?" she asks.

Garret swallows and puts down his sandwich. "Found in-innocent."

"You agreed with that verdict?"

He nods. "She had an a-a-" He stops and looks embarrassed.

"Remember what I told you about the position of your tongue," Rosita says. They've done a few speech exercises, but Rosita thinks his block is mostly psychological. She's basically making stuff up and telling him it will work, hoping maybe it will.

He plays with his tongue in his mouth, and tries again. "Affair. Her h-husband caught them. She l-lied and said she was f-forced."

"You're already improving," Rosita says. He's not improving so much as being more willing to talk  _despite_  the stutter. But that could lead to improvement in time. Garret's gone so long with talking so little that Rosita wonders if he would have worked it out if he hadn't shut down. "So, then…it was a false accusation?"

He nods.

"How do you know that?"

"W-w-witnesses to their affair. And the m-man's rep-" He moves his tongue around. " _Reputation_  for h-honesty. And she re-re-" Rosita doesn't try to finish for him. " _Recanted_."

"So…does something happen to  _her_  now?"

"Septic t-tank duty. No one w-wants it. And reduced r-r-rations."

Rosita slides her pocket knife out, butterflies it open, and cuts a slice off her apple. "Do you ever wonder what happened to the man you  _did_  banish for rape a while ago? Don't you worry he may find a gang and try to come back and take this place over?"

Garret's mouth drops open. The thought obviously hasn't occurred to him.

"Maybe he fell in with the Saviors we had to deal with, but I doubt that, or he would have led them to your doorstep before now. But what if he falls in with someone like them? Maybe those men who attacked us, who might still have a large headquarters in Norfolk for all we know?"

"We k-keep a good w-watch. N-no-one gets th-through."

Rosita eats her apple slice off her knife and then says, "But you know it would be better if he was executed instead of banished. That's what you wanted. And with one more vote on your side on that Council…it's what  _would_  have happened."

"Just cause I can't t-talk.." He shifts his tongue again, like he really thinks that might work, "Doesn't m-mean I'm an idiot. I n-know what you're doing."

The blade of the knife freezes halfway through her apple and Rosita fears she's pushed her luck too far.

"You w-want Javier on the C-council when my P-pa dies. Well, you don't have to be n-nice to m-me for that. Me and C-Colton and D-Dolly and Henrietta – " He smiles because he got his half-sister's name out without a stutter, "we agreed when that happens, D-Dolly will stay on as the n-new chair in my p-pa's p-place. I'll step down. P-pa insists I be on it, but I don't l-like it." He adjusts his tongue again and barrels on almost without a stutter: "And we'll have camp-wide elections for the two empty sp-spots."

"Oh." It hadn't occurred to her that the Weatherford siblings might be making plans behind their father's back for a change in governing structure once he's gone, or that Garret might  _give up_  the position of power that Amos plans to pass down to him.

Garrett smiles. It's the first time Rosita's seen him do it, and he looks surprisingly good-looking when he does. His hazel eyes twinkle. "Now you h-have to be n-nice to  _everyone_."

[*]

The goods from the dentist office now in the pick-up, they resume their scavenging. Carol pounds on a shopfront advertising massage and facial services.

"Hell you expect to find in there?" Daryl asks as he leans with one shoulder against the glass.

"Tea and bottled water. They serve it to the ladies while they're waiting for their massages. Or so I hear. I never could afford one. Always fantasized about it though."

"Got tame fantasies," Daryl tells her.

"Well you don't know  _who_  was giving me the massage or  _how_."

He glowers a little, clearly not liking the idea of anyone giving her a massage, even in her fantasies. "Give ya a massage later," he says. "Grab some lotions and shit. Whatever ya want."

She smiles and moves in a little closer, a hand on his belt. "You're going to make my fantasies come true, are you?"

"Get a room!" Jesus shouts and Daryl flushes a fleshy pink.

Carol laughs and steps away from him. As no walkers have stumbled to the windows, she tries the door. It's locked, so Aaron goes to work with his brick.

When the window doesn't give, Daryl insists on taking over. Three blows later, the glass splinters, and in another two, it shatters.

"I weakened it for you," Aaron insists.

Daryl wraps a bandanna around his hand to clear the glass away before crawling through. Boots land one by one beside him, crunching the glass. Hazy sunlight filters through the windows to cast patterns on the armchairs in the waiting room and on the lotions and other products lining the silver shelves.

Carol strolls over and begins to examine them. After pumping hard three times to squeeze a dollop of lavender lotion onto the dry flesh of her hand, she rubs it in and brings it to her nose for a sniff. "I think it's dried –"

"- Hands up and weapons on the ground!"

Everyone's reaction to the unexpected voice is to seize their weapons instead of dropping them. They all whirl around in search of the voice. It's coming from the other side of an interior door that leads back to the massage rooms.

"You're outnumbered and we're heavily armed!" Comes a second voice from behind the door. "Weapons down and hands up, or we open fire!"


	67. Chapter 67

Daryl learned his lesson at Terminus – you don't give up your guns, ever, for any reason. He's not sure when Carol learned it, but she's just grabbed one end of the couch to swivel it facing the door as a barrier, so he grabs the other, and soon enough they're behind it, weapons still clutched in their hands.

Aaron and Jesus have ducked behind the receptionist's desk. If the owner of those two voices are going to open fire, they'll have to do it through both the wall and the furniture, or they'll have to come out in the open.

"They both sounded like women," Carol whispers to Daryl. "I don't think there's as many as they say."

Daryl nods. He shouts, "We ain't puttin' down our weapons. Why don't y'all?"

There's no response.

They wait.

Footsteps thud down the hallway behind the interior door, but strangely enough,  _away_  from them. Carol and Daryl exchange confused glances.

"Did they leave?" Jesus hisses from behind the desk.

"Dunno," Daryl admits.

But soon, through the glass door, he spies two women running into the parking lot and flinging themselves into their pick-up. Neither appears to be armed and both sport hiking backpacks.

"Did you leave the keys in there?" Jesus asks Aaron.

"I didn't think there was anyone around! A walker wasn't going to take it."

"Shit!" Daryl curses and scurries to his feet. He bursts through the door just as the women get the pick-up started. He jerks open the passenger's door and levels his loaded crossbow. "Hands up."

The driver hits the accelerator and the truck lurches forward, but Daryl leaps up, reaches over the woman while she pounds against his arm, turns it off, and jerks the keys from the ignition. The truck lurches to a stop as he jumps back down and rips his crossbow from the woman who is trying to pry it from him. He levels it again. "Said, hands up."

The women slowly raise their hands into the air. Now Aaron and Jesus stand armed and poised on the passenger side, and Carol is behind him.

"Both of you, out," Carol orders, gesturing with the barrel of her rifle.

The two women exit the truck, and Carol gestures them to the front, where they stand leaned back against the hood before all four of their captors. One of the women studies their faces closely, lingering on the most clean-cut among them. "Aaron?" she asks.

Daryl jerks his head to Aaron. "Ya know 'er?"

Aaron searches her face with confusion. "Uh…"

"I'm Skyler. From Oceanside. You're one of the Hilltop traders, aren't you?"

"Oh…Yeah. Huh. I didn't recognize your hair cut so short." Aaron shoulders his rifle and looks from Skyler to the other woman.

"Karen," she introduces herself. "I don't think we've ever met. I've always been out fishing or on supply runs when Hilltop comes to trade."

Jesus slides his handgun back into his holster, and Carol and Daryl put up their weapons.

"What were you doing in there?" Carol asks.

The women tell their story. They're the two missing supply runners that Beatrice and Cyndie have been searching for by helicopter. They ran into trouble on their supply run – walker clusters and washed out roads - but eventually made it back to Oceanside with a pick-up full of supplies. They found the message carved in the tree and realized their people had moved on to Croatan Beach.

On their way to meet up with Oceanside, they stopped to camp. But while Skyler slept, Karen was disarmed by a man sneaking up on their camp, and he took them both at gunpoint to a nearby cabin where he had apparently been living alone. He bound then and left them in a bedroom, promising to return soon.

"We were pretty sure what he had in mind," Skyler says. "We worked our ropes loose, busted out a window, and escaped. We weren't armed, so we didn't try to confront him. He'd taken the keys to our pick-up, and locked it in his garage, so we couldn't recover it. And when we heard him coming for us, we ran. He gave chase and shot, but we buried ourselves in the brush and got away. We lost him. We've been making our way to Croatan Beach for two days now. We haven't found a vehicle we could get started."

"Until yours," Karen adds. "We did find some bicycles along the way, and we rode them for miles, but we both had flat tires eventually. We've been on foot ever since. We haven't found any guns either. Just these knives." She pats the knife at her waist. "It's been touch and go. Last night we made camp in that massage parlor, because it was unlocked, none of the windows were broken, and there were the double sets of doors. They also have plenty of candles for light, and beds back there to sleep in."

"We slept pretty late," Skyler continues. "Had a late breakfast. Packed up. We were just about to leave when we heard the glass shatter. We didn't know who it was, or how many of you there were, so we postured. But then we realized we could escape out the back."

"Well, your people have been looking for you," Aaron tells them. "And they've wiped out that camp at Norfolk. Although maybe that man who abducted you was one of them?"

"I doubt it," Skyler says. "He seemed to have been living alone for a long time. He muttered something about being banished from his last camp, two years ago, some winery or something."

Carol and Daryl catch each other's eye. "Did he say the  _name_  of the winery?" Carol asks her.

"Dead End."

Jesus whistles. "Small world."

"Where's his cabin?" Carol asks.

Daryl gives her a warning look. He can guess where her mind is going, but some rapist in the woods is not their problem.

Skyler gives her the details of the location, which Carol writes down on a little notepad she carries in the front pocket of her gray shirt.

Aaron motions the other three over to confer. "What are you thinking, Carol?"

"I'm thinking we find this guy and kill him."

"Ain't our problem," Daryl says. "We ain't the county sheriff's department."

"I don't think you understand, Daryl," Carol tells him. "I'm not looking for retribution for the kidnapping of these women. He knows where Dead End is. If he ever falls into a gang of men like the Saviors, or like those men who were headquartered at Norfolk, and he tells them where Dead End is…"

"Damn," Daryl mutters and shakes his head for not having thought of the possibility. "M'girl's smart."

"I don't know," Jesus says. "Dead End apparently didn't see fit to execute him. It seems they banished him."

"Yeah, well, I think we can guess why," Carol tells him, nodding to the women who wait by the pick-up truck. "He probably tried something similar at Dead End. He's not worth the air he breathes."

"I don't like playing God," Jesus says.

"Then you can stay with the vehicles while we do it," Carol says. She looks at Aaron. "Are you on board?"

"It's a long hypothetical, that he'll find a gang and attack our neighbors one day. He hasn't in two years. But  _if_  he does, we're next. I'll rest easier knowing there's one less possible threat out there. I'm in."

Jesus sighs. "I guess I'm in, too, then."

"We actually  _do_  need someone to guard the vehicles while we do it," Carol tells him. "You should both stay and guard them. Daryl and I will take care of the rapist."

Aaron glances back at the women. "We should let them have the pick-up to get home to Croatan Beach. They can't walk another sixty miles. We can fit all the stuff in the semi-trailer, and if we rearrange, there will still be some room if we loot more."

"Ain't givin' it to 'em for nothin'," Daryl mutters.

"Oceanside gave us their hospitality last night," Aaron reasons.

"And took our fuel truck." Daryl reminds him. "'Nuff gifts."

"Technically, it was  _their_  fuel truck. I mean, they found it first."

Daryl glowers.

Aaron holds up a hand. "Fine. Fine. We'll trade for it." He walks back to the women and proposes that they take the pick-up in exchange for a promise of twenty pounds of dry fish in the late fall. The fish will be good to store for winter. "We'll send someone down for the fish, and then we'll make any other trades we both work out then."

The women agree, and then they look at the strip mall.

"Anythin' worth lootin' here is  _ours_ ," Daryl insists. "Y'all got an entire McMansion full of shit by the beach anyhow."

The women look at one another and smile. "They looted the headquarters?"

"Yeah," Aaron replies. "And probably some other places, too."

The women bid their farewells and head off in the pick-up.

"Look at that," Daryl says as they drive around the semi-trailer and onto the road. "Oceanside's got a damn search copter, and  _we's_  the one who found 'em."

"We're just that good, Pookie," Carol tells him, and with a hand on his back, urges him toward the strip mall, which they finish looting. There are indeed lots of tea bags in the massage parlor, and Carol makes sure to take a few lotions and oils. "I'm holding you to your promise when we get home," she tells Daryl.

[*]

Rosita rolls off of Javier, and he slaps her bare ass playfully as she settles on her stomach, her head against the pillow.

"I  _love_  late morning siesta," he says as he stretches an arm across her lower back. He kisses her shoulder and settles his head against his own pillow.

She turns her head to face him. "I don't think you're getting much rest, though."

He shrugs. "I'm getting energized for the rest of the day's work."

"Garret said something interesting to me yesterday." She tells him about he Weatherford siblings' plan for governance once Amos is gone. "It's something to think about."

"Are you going to be my campaign manager when the time comes, hermosa?"

She smirks. "I'm not much for kissing babies."

He runs a strand of her dark hair through two of his fingers. "I wish you were. We'd make beautiful babies."

She sighs and rolls on her back. "You told me we weren't going to have this argument for a year. That you weren't going to mention it again until then."

"Sorry. I won't. Come here…" He draws her on top of himself and kisses her passionately. Soon election campaigns and arguments over babies are both forgotten.

[*]

Carol is back behind Daryl on the motorcycle. The feel of her own thighs pressed against him, the vibrations of the bike, and the thought of her promised massage have been making her incredibly horny, but the feeling begins to fade as he purrs to a stop at the split oak tree a little beyond mile marker twelve.

"There it is," Carol says. "They said the cabin was about two miles northwest into the woods from here."

He dismounts and offers her his hand to help her down before swinging free his crossbow and making sure it's loaded. He checks the handgun on his hip too.

The brakes of the semi hiss and squeal as Jesus comes to a stop at the side of the road. He and Aaron hop down, Aaron's boots crunching on the gravel of the shoulder. He grabs his rifle from inside the truck and slips the safety off.

"Good luck to you two," Jesus tells them.

"Be careful out here, too," Carol replies. "And keep a good watch over our things."

Jesus nods, and Carol, her AR-15 in her hands, begins to wade through the tall wild grass that grows almost to her thighs. The blades ripple like green waves toward the tree line. She can feel Daryl's form, strong and close behind her.


	68. Chapter 68

A crow weaves in the sky above them, cawing as it dips it wings, glides past them, and shoots off through the green-leaved trees. Daryl crouches to study the sign. "Someone was runnin' this way toward the highway. Think it was them Oceanside ladies. We's headed in the right direction." He stands and jerks his head forward, and they move on.

After that, the trail becomes more obvious, and then fainter again as they weave through the forest to a clearing near a cabin. They duck behind a tall oak tree, shoulders rooted to the thick bark, Carol's back against Daryl's chest. She peers around the trunk at the cabin in the distance and jerks back when a man thuds out onto the rickety wood porch and dumps a pot of piss over the railing onto the ground below.

"Handgun on his right hip, rifle on his left shoulder," she whispers. And a sanitation plan that should have killed him by now, she thinks.

"Let's hit 'em now 'en," Daryl mutters, and they leap from around either side of the tree and raise their weapons. They're about to fire when a woman comes out of the front door.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" The man throws up his hands, while the woman rushes back inside and slams the door.

Daryl and Carol peer at each other. "This the guy?" Daryl asks doubtfully.

"Skyler and Karen didn't mention a woman," Carol says.

Daryl begins to creep toward the porch, leaning into his bow. Carol follows. But the man doesn't stay still. He quickly reaches for his handgun and yanks it from the holster. It's almost up and pointed at them when an arrow from Daryl's bow thunks into his forehead and a bullet from Carol's rifle strikes near his heart.

The man's legs give out like a marionette and he folds to the porch.

Inside the cabin, the woman screams.

[*]

Enid peeks out of her bedroom door and looks up and down the hallway. "The coast is clear," she says.

Elijah, checking that his zipper is up, eases out the door with her, and together they head down the stairs and back to the laundry on the porch. They scrub in silence for a while, darting glances at one another and smiling.

Michonne, who is returning from watch, mounts the stairs and stands with a hand on her belly. "Have you two seen Rick?"

"He's pumping out the septic tank with Jerry," Enid replies.

"You better stay away from that," Elijah tells her, nodding to her pregnant belly. "It's bad enough you keep standing watch."

"I think I can handle an hour on my feet," Michonne tells him and disappears inside.

"You better not be so overprotective of me when I'm pregnant," Enid tells him, and his eyes go suddenly wide. It's a second before she realizes what she just implied. "Oh! No! I didn't me you and I were necessarily ever going to…I just….I wasn't even really thinking about – "

"- It's okay," he interrupts. "You're the one who shot  _me_  down, remember?"

"I didn't shoot you down. I just said  _wait_  awhile to ask."

"So I'm waiting," Elijah replies with a smile. "It's a fun wait."

[*]

"Shit," Daryl mutters. "Was that even the man who took 'em?"

"I don't know," Carol says nervously. It's been a long time she's killed someone who didn't fully  _deserve_  killing. But what were they to do? He drew on them. Of course, they put him in a position where he felt threatened.

In the cabin, the woman's screams have stopped. Carol marches forward, rifle ready, with Daryl on her heels. They mount the stairs and step over the dead man on the porch. Carol calls through the door, "We don't intend to hurt- "

A shotgun pumps inside and Daryl throws himself on Carol to push her down as a blast echoes off the cabin walls and a hole tears through the front door. He falls to the porch, his body sheltering hers.

They're both spared the shot, but the force of it sends a splintered piece of wood hurtling into Daryl's side like the point of a knife. He groans, rolls off of Carol, and seizes the end of the wood as another blast rips through the door. The shot lodges in the porch railing and sends old paint and wood shattering like a cloud of blue dust in the air.

Carol scurries into a standing position. From somewhere inside, a back door thuds open. As Carol runs into the cabin, sweeping with her rifle, she sees the shotgun abandoned on the wood floor, and she can hear an engine catching and grinding outside.

The back porch groans as Carol's combat boots scurry across it. She leaps over the two porch stairs and runs to the truck, where she yanks open the driver's side and points her rifle. "Stop!" she yells. "Just put your hands up, please!"

The woman does. She has curly red hair, green eyes, and wears a pair of badly worn jeans. Her shirt is a thin, white tank top. There are black and blue bruises on the inside of her thin, pale arms, around her left eye, and at the base of her neck – bruises that are all too familiar to Carol, all too much like the ones Ed once left on her own skin, in less obvious places.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Carol assures her. "I need to talk to you. Get out of the truck." She steps back so the woman can make her way down. "But I need to check on my husband first." Carol motions the woman around the front of the cabin at gunpoint.

Daryl is sitting up on the porch, his feet on the stairs, applying pressure through his shirt to the bloody wound on his side, breathing hard.

"Did it nick anything major?" Carol asks him.

"Don't think so." He nods to the trail of blood he's left crawling to his present position. "Maybe shouldn't of pulled the damn thing out though."

"That's a lot of blood." Carol's voice quakes as she speaks.

"Think the bleedin' stopped."

"Do you have a first aid kit?" Carol asks the woman.

"I don't know if he did or not," she says, starring at the body on the porch. She doesn't seem particularly upset that the man is dead.

"Was he holding you captive?" Carol asks.

"Sort of," she says.

Daryl's face tells Carol that the response makes no sense to him, but after years of staying in an abusive marriage, it makes some sense to her.

One thing puzzles Carol, however. "But he let you have a shotgun?"

The woman shakes her head. "He kept it unloaded in the closet. He kept all the shells locked up, but he carried around a few in his pockets. I snuck two from him this morning. Slipped my hand in while I was kissing him. He didn't notice. I was holding onto them, secretly. Tonight, while he was sleeping, I was considering…" She looks down at the black blood pooled by the crumpled body. "I guess I don't have to now."

Carol motions her inside with her rifle to go look for a first aid kit. "Did he take two women captive about a week ago?" she asks as they enter the kitchen. That's how long Skyler and Karen said they'd been traveling by bicycle and foot after escaping the cabin.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go," the woman says, as if she heard an accusation instead of a question. "My whole camp was wiped out by walkers four months ago. He found me alone in the woods. He saved me. There were walkers after me. He took me in. He hunted. He fed me. He didn't hurt me as long as I…" She swallows. "As long as I did what he wanted when he wanted. So I didn't leave. I was afraid to be out there on my own. Everyone I knew died."

"Did he?" Carol repeats. "Kidnap two women? About a week ago?"

Guilt, fear, disgust, and half a dozen other emotions flit across the red-haired woman's face. "Maybe. I woke up one night when I heard a scuffle. When I came out of our bedroom, he was locking the door of the second bedroom with a padlock. He told me to stay out of that room, that it was his private room, and to go back to bed. I think he was waiting to make sure I was asleep to go back in there…But then I heard glass shatter when I went back into our bedroom. Whoever was in there must have escaped through the window. He gave chase, but he didn't come back with anyone. And then he…he just took it out on me."

Carol closes her eyes and tries not to think of all the times Ed took his frustration out on her.

"It's why I finally decided I didn't care if I lived or died, that I was going to kill him as soon as I could sneak those shells."

Carol begins rummaging through cabinets and drawers in search of a first aid kit. "Did he ever mention an old camp?"

"Yes," the woman replies. "He would ramble sometimes about some winery. He said they threw him out for no good reason, and one day, he was going to pay them back for it. I thought he was making it up."

"He wasn't." Carol opens another cabinet.

"It might be under the bathroom vanity," the woman tells her.

Carol heads to the bathroom, which has clearly not been in use, shoulders her rifle, and crouches down to open the cabinet to the vanity. After digging around, she finds a blue first aid kit and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. She has one grasped in her left hand and the other in her right when she hears the haunting sound of a shotgun being pumped.

There's only time for a few thoughts of self-admonishment to flash through her head like lightening –  _Why didn't I pick up the shotgun? Why did I believe her when she said she only had two shells? Why did I turn my back on her? How could I be so stupid?_ – before the shotgun blast echoes in Carol's ear.

Her body jumps, and she's sure it's all over – her marriage with Daryl, her life at Hillcrest, the future she's been trying to build for Henry and Judith and Gracie and the little Grimes baby-to-be. The last few years of her life spool through her mind like a movie reel rewinding in a projector, to that moment she first met Daryl: when he stepped out of the woods near their Atlanta quarry camp, setting foot on the gravely shore of the lake where she and Jacqui and Lori were bathing in the cold green water, with his crossbow in one callused hand, black walker blood splattered on his sleeveless white shirt, his hair all askew, a dead snake draped around his neck, and a surprised greeting on his lips - "Hey, uh...ladies.  _Damn_. Y'all alone?"


	69. Chapter 69

There's no pain. Why is there no pain? Carol's been shot before, and there's been pain, searing, like a hot iron.

Slowly she stands and turns and looks through the open bathroom doorway to the living room of the cabin, just as the front door thuds open, and Daryl, with his wound abandoned and starting to bleed again, bursts in with his crossbow raised.

He takes three running steps and stops abruptly when the toe of his boot contacts the pool of blood. The fallen shotgun lies on the cracked wood floor, and beside it, the abused woman, with part of her face blown away and the top of her head exploded open. He heaves once at the sight and swallows before breathing out a sigh of relief. "Thought she shot  _you_."

"So did I," Carol says quietly.

He lowers his bow and returns the pressure of his hand to his wound.

Carol blinks at the body, grits her teeth, and looks away. Anger mixes with pity and her own self-admonishment in a steamy cauldron of emotions that tightens her chest. "Come on," she says. "Let's go out on the porch and get you patched up."

[*]

Daryl hisses as Carol cleans his wound with a clean cloth and alcohol. "It doesn't look too bad," she tells him. "But the splinters must hurt the worst. I'm going to pick them out now." She fishes a pair of tweezers out of the first aid kit and sanitizes them with the alcohol. Daryl's hand curls around his crossbow on the porch while she begins to pick out the pieces.

"So it  _was_  him?" he asks when she's done picking and has cleaned the wound a second time and moved onto to patching it with gauze.

"It must be. She said he was kicked out of a winery."

"Think she was afraid we was gonna kidnap 'er?" Daryl asks. "And I was…" He bites down on his bottom lip.

"I don't know. I think she just didn't want to live anymore." How many times, over the years, had Carol herself thought of finding Ed's shotgun shells while he slept, and putting the barrel in her own mouth? It was Sophia who kept her alive. "I have to bury her."

"'M gonna help."

"You can't dig. Not with that wound."

"Ya can't do it alone. 'S burn 'er instead. 'S a fire pit." He nods to a stone enclosure to the side of the cabin. "'S contained."

When he's patched up, they carry out the body, Daryl wincing from the pain in his side. Carol ties two sticks together with some twine she finds in the shed to form a cross and leaves a grave marker beside the stone circle where the flames still flicker gently. Behind the cabin, they find the pick-up truck the man stole from the Oceanside supply runners, and they fill it with supplies from the cabin, Carol doing most of the heavy lifting and insisting Daryl stop grunting his way through it.

They drive on a beaten path through the forest – not the way the women ran when they escaped - to a minor but paved road. Carol hops out of the truck and looks back and forth to get a feel for which direction the road meets the highway where Jesus and Aaron await them.

[*]

Carol's hands rest on the handlebars of Daryl's motorcycle. She glides past the semi-trailer Jesus drives, and then the passenger's side of the pick-up Aaron is manning, where Daryl sits, his boots up on the dash, looking drained. She nods to him and then pulls quickly in front.

She dives the motorcycle like a hawk down the windy Virginia highway that bottoms out flat again and flies past the empty pole that once held the sign to Dead End winery. Someone has finally thought to take it down, perhaps to make the winery's existence less conspicuous. Rosita, maybe, Carol thinks, and wonders how she's doing in her new home.

[*]

Rick congratulates the supply run team on their finds, and all rejoice to hear Oceanside is alive and well and that their attackers are vanquished. "We owe a debt to those women," Rick insists.

Elijah takes a look at Daryl's wound as he sits on the library couch. "There's still a few splinters that need to come out."

Daryl grunts his way through the hunt and peck process, half glad Merle isn't still alive to call him a pussy. But it  _hurts_ , more than he would expect mere wood to. He's been  _shot_  before, after all. He wonders if he's getting weak or old, or if splinters are just a special kind of evil.

Enid assists Elijah, because she wants to learn more about medicine. "I'm going to close it with some liquid stitches," Elijah tells her. "Can you go get them? They're in the first upper cabinet in the blood bus. It'll say Dermabond." When she leaves, Elijah returns his attention to Daryl. "How long has it been since you got the wound?"

"Five hours, maybe," Carol, who is standing with an arm on the mantle, answers for him.

"Unfortunately, at this point," Elijah says, "it's probably going to leave a scar when it heals."

"That's okay." Carol smiles at her husband. "Scars are sexy."

Daryl ducks his head.

"Need a drink, Pookie?" she asks.

He nods. "Whiskey, if we got any left."

"You might have to settle for vodka, but I'll see."

[*]

Daryl has two shots of vodka. It's the most hard liquor he's had in one sitting in months. He doesn't expect it to affect him, but it does, like a sudden slap. Maybe it's the blood loss. He ends up taking a pre-dinner nap, and awakes to the smell of rabbit stew. Dianne or Jerry must have snagged some while they were out. When he settles at the dining room table, he suggests, "Should trap some live rabbits. Breed 'em for meat."

"I like that idea," Rick says. "A sustainable supply. And one day maybe we'll have chickens to eat. Mason said he's bringing three chicks tomorrow."

"When they're old enough to lay," Maggie tells him, "we'll need to keep them alive for a steady supply of eggs."

"Well, we could breed them when they're older," Rick suggests.

"If we want fertilized eggs," Maggie replies, "we'll need to borrow a rooster from Dead End. I don't know if they'll lend one out."

"I bet Dianne could talk Mason into it," Michonne says with a smirk.

"I'm not sure Mason has as much influence at Dead End as we used to think," Ezekiel tells her.

"No," Nabila agrees with her husband. "But he might smuggle the rooster out for a day."

Dianne laughs. "I could see him trying that."

[*]

Daryl eases his shirt off slowly as Carol unpacks the oils and lotions she snagged from the massage parlor and puts them in the top drawer of her night stand. "This gonna be a naked massage I give ya?" he asks and flings the shirt across the room toward the laundry basket. It ends in pool outside.

"You aren't giving me  _any_  massage until that wound heals. I'm not going to be responsible for it tearing open again."

"But  _then_  it's gonna be a naked massage? Full body, yeah?"

She laughs. "I don't think that's how the professionals do it."

"Well, I ain't a professional."

Carol turns down the blankets. A cool spring breeze wafts through the open window. She settles her head on Daryl's shoulder in bed, careful not to press against his wound, and closes her eyes, but the image of that woman with the top of her head blown off won't leave her mind.

Maybe the thought stiffens her muscles, because Daryl asks softly, "Ya a'ight?"

"If she hadn't killed herself…We'd have taken her back with us. She could have had a life here. A good life. If I'd been watching her – "

"- Ain't yer fault. Made 'er choice."

"If we hadn't showed up, she'd have killed  _him_  herself, and maybe that would have given her closure. The will to live on."

"Ain't our fault, what she did." His tone is almost angry, and Carol wonders if he's trying to reassure her or himself with his certainty. "We took out a threat," Daryl continues. "'S all that matters. 'N she's free of 'em now."

"I know she's free of him, but there's life after…And I'm sad for her. That she'll never know that. That's there  _life_  after."

Daryl's fingers curl in the hair at the nape of her neck. "Love ya, Carol."

It's the seventh time he's said those words – and, yes, she's counting. That's more often than she ever expected him to, but not so often that they don't still prick her heart with surprised joy every time he does. She kisses his shoulder. "I love you, too," she whispers, and closes her eyes, and feels the peace unwind the tension in her limbs, until sleep overtakes her.


	70. Chapter 70

Mason comes the next day, in his old-fashioned little red-pick up, with Carson in the passenger's side. They're trailed by a black man in a larger, newer truck. The Dead Enders have brought the chickens and several loaves of fresh bread in exchange for some of the jet fuel Hillcrest took from the hangar. They'll be able to use it in the diesel engines of their farm equipment, Mason says, if they mix it with some lubricant.

Mason introduces his brother-in-law Eddie. "This is my half-sister Henrietta's husband. He's an electrician and an all-around handyman. He's here to convert all your ceiling fans to manual so you can use them when it turns hot."

"It's already turned hot," says Michonne, fanning herself.

Eddie smiles at her. "When I'm done, you'll be able to get them running for up to an hour at a time by pumping a chain." Eddie gets to work, but turns down their invitation to stay for dinner. "I think Amos doesn't like people to be missing from his dinner table." He looks at Mason pointedly when he says this, but Mason pretends not to notice.

[*]

Mason, after spending a dinner chatting with the Hillcresters and a night in Dianne's bed, brings back to Dead End the news of the man they once banished. He fills his family in over dinner in the big house, and Rosita is relieved to learn that Oceanside has survived.

"We have Hillcrest to thank for eliminating that threat," Mason tells his father.

Rosita appreciates the plug on behalf of her people, but Amos only replies, "What threat? Was one man going to take  _us_  on?"

"He could have fallen in with a bad group one day," Mason tells him. "And if he told them about us - "

"- well, Hillcrest  _already_  told a bad group about us, didn't they?" Amos grumbles. "They left them road sides to our winery."

"I know," Javier tells him. "And back then I was as angry about it as you were. But we're  _allies_  now."

Amos shoots Javier a wary look, but the old man doesn't reject the term. Instead, he resumes his meal.

Mason says, "This Oceanside camp has a functioning helicopter."

Amos lowers his fork. "Can they reach us with it?" He sounds nervous, as if he fears an air attack.

"They don't have enough fuel to get here and back to their camp," Mason replies. "But while they were scouting for their lost supply runners, they spied a herd heading north. I think our scouts should work with Hillcrest's scouts to monitor it, because it's going to be a threat to both of us if it comes this way."

"The Council will discuss it," Amos tells him curtly, and Rosita can't help but feel bad for Mason, who seems the black sheep of the family. He sits at his father's table, but he doesn't sleep in his father's house and he's not on the Council. He's been relegated to the servant's quarters, and he's closer to Javier than he is to his own brothers or sisters.

"I'll be happy to be one of the scouts," Rosita says. "If you need an extra. Just to put that out there." She hasn't been at Dead End for sixth months yet, but she's itching to get out. She likes it here, but she's never stayed so long behind the gates of any camp. "But if you're not comfortable with me leaving yet, Amos, I'll stay."

"The Council will discuss it."

[*]

Rosita snaps her backpack closed and slings it on her shoulder as the rays of the rising son drift in through the window of their suite. Javier, who has just stepped out of the shower with a towel around his waist, leans in for a kiss. "Be careful out there."

"I'm completely capable of handling myself in the wild."

"I know. It was a pleasantry, hermosa." He shakes his head and pulls his clothes out a dresser drawer. "But…be careful."

Mason is waiting for her as he smokes a hand-rolled cigarette and leans casually against the passenger's door of his little red pick-up in the garage. "We're not taking that," she insists. "It's old and noisy and not exactly high speed if we need a quick escape."

"We're only taking it to the highway to meet up with Jesus and Aaron. Then we go together in  _their_  truck. One vehicle is quieter than two." He grounds his cigarette out beneath his boot heel and opens the door for her.

"Well aren't you the gentleman," she smirks before she climbs inside.

[*]

Aaron and Jesus have brought cloaks made of walker skin. "We won't get  _that_  close," Jesus says. "But…just in case. We don't want them catching scent of us and turning our way."

As the truck drives southward for fifty miles, Rosita stands in the bed of the pick-up with one hand on the bar that holds up the flood lights, and the other scouring the road through binoculars. "Stop!" she shouts at last, because she's spied the lurching mass in the distance.

"Already?" Aaron asks. "They're a lot closer than when Oceanside saw them."

[*]

Rosita returns to Hillcrest with Aaron, Jesus, and Mason, ostensibly to report their findings, but more to see the people she hates to admit she's missed so much. There are lots of hugs exchanged, and a hundred questions about Dead End and married life, and as for the herd, Rick declares, "Let's keep monitoring it, and it doesn't divert, we'll need a plan to divert it ourselves."

"Are you staying the night?" Dianne asks Mason hopefully.

Mason glances at Rosita. "Amos will blow a gasket if I'm not back by dinner," Rosita says.

"Not tonight, darlin'," he tells Dianne. "But soon."

[*]

A week passes, and the scouts report that the herd has diverted east. But in another two weeks, it turns westward toward them again. "It's getting smaller," Aaron reports. "Some are peeling off, others are falling off and slowing down from starvation, but it's definitely headed our way again. And it's still big. Three hundred, maybe."

"Keep an eye on it," Rick repeats. "If it gets within fifteen miles of us or Dead End, it's time to divert."

[*]

On the first day of May, Rick is in the fields helping to reap the spring harvest, his hands deep in the dirt when Henry comes clamoring down the porch stairs and running through the stalks, shouting, "It's coming! It's coming! Mr. Grimes, your baby is coming!"

There's a flurry activity as everyone runs in from the fields. Morgan takes over on watch for Carol so she can join the excitement. Dianne gets Mason on the radio and tells him to bring Dolly quickly. Elijah prepares and sanitizes his surgical tools, just in case an emergency C-section is required. Nabila boils water, and Carol gathers towels. Michonne paces her bedroom floor, grunting when the contractions hit her.

"Isn't it too early?" Rick asks nervously.

"Four weeks," Carol reassures him. "They're not even considered premature then."

When Dolly arrives with Mason, everyone clears out of the bedroom except Michonne, Rick, and the midwife. Some return to work, while others congregate in the library, nervously awaiting the news. Ezekiel paces the length of the far bookcase, murmuring to himself.

"What are you doing, my love?" Nabila asks him.

"Composing a poem for the occasion of the birth."

Nabila smiles to herself and rocks in the chair with Gracie on her lap. The little girl plays with a board book, opening and closing it. Through the closed door of Michonne's bedroom, down the hallway, across the foyer, and into the library drifts the expectant mother's cries.

"Mommy ok?" Judith asks.

"It's normal," Carol reassures her.

The little girl keeps trying to escape the library. She runs through the foyer shouting, "Has sister come? Has sister come?"

Daryl has to drag her back. He lifts Judith up and settles her on his hip. "Might be a brother, ya know."

"I want a sister!" she insists. "Have a brother!"

"Ya do?" Daryl asks her, his face marked with confusion and a hint of sadness. Carol assumes he's thinking of Carl, as is she.

"Henry," Judith replies.

"I'm not your brother," Henry tells her. He's sitting on the library floor, putting together a 200-piece jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table. When it's done, it will form…no surprise…a vineyard. "I'm just your  _friend_."

Rick wanders through the foyer, looking a little dazed, his hand lodged in his hair.

"Already?" Carol asks.

"No," he says, sounding annoyed. "She kicked me out. I guess I was too worried. She asked if you'd come assist Dolly."

Carol vanishes to the bedroom, where after an hour she has the joy of seeing Michonne's baby force its way into this world, goop-coated and pink-skinned and sounding the cry of life.

"It's a boy," Dolly says.

"Get Rick now," Michonne tells her, collapsing to the bed with exhaustion. Dolly pulls a sheet up over her, and the proud papa soon arrives to do the honors of cutting the umbilical cord. Dolly and Carol clean off the baby, and Dolly checks it over, puts a stethoscope to its tiny chest, weighs it on a food scale, and measures the little tyke. "Eight pounds and two ounces. Good thing he was early! He's doing great." She lays the baby back in Michonne's arms.

Rick bends down to kiss his wife's forehead and almost cries with joy when he looks over his little son.

"He's beautiful, isn't he?" Michonne whispers.

"Yes." But then Rick asks, "But why is he so white?"

Michonne laughs.

"His pigment hasn't all come in," Dolly explains. "You'll start seeing color in a few days, but it could take months before he's fully arrived at his permanent skin color."

Carol leaves the new parents to themselves, with Dolly checking up on Michonne, and returns to the library to announce the good news.

"What they name 'em?" Daryl wants to know.

She smiles. "They named him after Michonne's father and after the man they want to be his godfather. John Daryl Grimes."

Carol watches the shock play across Daryl's face and the surprise give way to pride.


	71. Chapter 71

John Daryl Grimes, who quickly earns a series of nicknames –  _Johnny boy_  from his father,  _J.D._  from his mother,  _John-John_ from his big sister, and  _little D_ from Daryl - takes like a champ to his mother's breast. He loses some weight the first few days, but then thrives and grows, and by the first week of June, his skin has taken on a gorgeous caramel tone, and his brown eyes begin to lighten with hints of blue and green.

The walker herd has drawn within thirty miles of Dead End, but it seems to be lingering at a public camping grounds, feeding off of carrion. The scouts from Dead End and Hillcrest have monitored it together, stomach down atop the nearby hills.

[*]

The stairs creek as Carol mounts them. She's just come off her two-hour shift on watch, and the house is dark and quiet, except for Rick, who is making the rounds as the lock checker with John Daryl sleeping in a sling.

"I see you're training him early," Carol says when they pass on the second-floor landing.

Rick sighs. "It's the only way he'll sleep – either at Michonne's breast, or in this sling. So I'm giving her a break."

Carol smiles down at the obscured lump across his chest. "Goodnight," she tells him, and makes her way upstairs to her own bedroom.

She expects Daryl will have gone to bed, but flickering light seeps out from under the door, casting radiant shadows on the wood panels. Cautiously and curiously, she opens the door.

Lit candles line both nightstands by the bed, the tall dresser, and the cleared-off vanity against the wall, their flames dancing against the darkness. On the bed is draped one of the B&Bs thick, terry cloth bathrobes. Daryl stands on the other side, peering at a bottle of oil in his hands – one of the oils she completely forgot she pilfered from the massage parlor.

"Oh, hey," he says, but Carol has not yet quite been able to close her dropped mouth. "Wounds been healed awhile. 'N I promised."

"Wow."

He motions to the candles. "How they do it, right, 'n those massage places?"

She laughs. "I don't know. And I don't care. I  _love_  it." She takes the robe and disappears in the bathroom to change, wondering if she's just stepped into a bizarre dream. Daryl and romantic are not two words she'd ever think to use in the same sentence. Not that he isn't sincere and loving in ways that sometimes twist her hearts into tight knots, but this was the last thing she expected to find when she opened the door. Of course, it's been a week since she's been in the mood for sex. It's not impossible he has ulterior motives. But if he does, she's already decided to reward his efforts.

Daryl starts with her exposed legs, as she lies on her stomach, and she has to ask him to lighten the pressure. He doesn't know his own strength. When he does, she melts into the bed, savoring his touch, the faint scent of champagne and strawberries filling the room.

The robe doesn't stay on long, and as he works over her shoulders and back and bottom, his ticklishness kisses follow his fingers and hands on her bare skin. "I don't think this is how the professionals do it," she teases.

"Roll over," he tells her.

She feels suddenly and unexpectedly shy and hesitates to roll over in the exposing light of the candles, knowing she'll be completely naked before him while he still has his clothes on, but she does it. Except he  _doesn't_  have his clothes on. She must have been so lost in the massage that she didn't notice him shimmying out of his shorts and boxers.

"This is  _definitely_  not how the professionals do it," she says with a smile, her eyes falling to his erection.

"Told ya, I ain't a professional." He starts again at her shoulders, but spends extra time on her breasts, in slow, teasing strokes, the oil warming her flesh, and her nipples hardening beneath the gentle circle of his thumb.

Her eyes closed, she can feel his breath deepening as he urges her legs apart and begins to rub her thighs. His head bent close to her ear, he groans, "Oh, fuck, Carol. Can't stand it no more," and plunges into her. She whimpers in surprise and pleasure, and her mouth finds his.

The lovemaking is not nearly as slow as the massage was. The rocking of the bed makes the candles on the nightstand flicker, and three go out before the cry goes out of Carol. She arches and claws her way down Daryl's back.

"Good girl," Daryl growls, and with two more thrusts, he's over the brink, too.

They lie shoulder to shoulder on their backs in the bed, breathing in and out as the shadow of the flames slow dance on the stucco ceiling above, weaving in and out of one another.

"No wonder those massage parlors charge so much," Carol says, and Daryl snorts.

[*]

The next week Rosita, Mason, Jesus, and Aaron report to the Hillcrest Council that the herd is still contained in the campground – for now.

When Dianne asks if Mason is staying the night, Rosita suggests going back to Hillcrest without him.

"Dianne can drop you in the morning," she reasons. "Before the stop sign." But she's unwilling to stay the night with her former people. She's still earning Amos's trust, little by little.

And little by little, Hillcrest is becoming home.

That night, she wakes to a pounding on the door, the young man Santiago shouting for Javier, because his wife - Javier's niece - has just given birth.

The baby is premature, and doesn't cry right away. Dolly has midwifed into struggling life. "Get Colton," Dolly tells Javier. The veterinarian will have to do in place of a doctor.

There's a night of anxiety, but the baby clings to life. Martina and Santiago name him after her late father, Javier's brother Juan, and give him Javier's middle name.

"They'll just call him J.J.," Javier grumbles when they crawl back into bed at four in the morning, with two hours to sleep before work begins.

"You're an uncle now," Rosita reminds him, hoping a nephew will satisfy his urge to be a father again. God knows those two young lovers will need help raising the child.

He grins before snuffing out the night.

[*]

Mason and Dianne share slow kisses in bed as the sunlight streams through the curtain. It's lazy and affectionate and titillating, but it doesn't actually lead to a second round of sex. That's okay with her. Mason worries his libido has declined with age, but, in reality, he moves at just about exactly the pace she needs.

"Maybe I should leave my toothbrush here," he says. "And a few things."

"Are you trying to move in?"

"Would it be such a bad thing if I did?"

Dianne doesn't dismiss the idea out of hand. She's been enjoying his company more and more. The late summer crop has been harvested, and the spring crop needs tending. They aren't hurting for food anymore, and they could probably use an extra set of hands in the fields. If he comes, he'll bring his horse, and that will help with the plowing. But it's a huge step in their relationship, especially if he expects to stay in her bedroom, which no doubt he does. "What about Carson?" she asks. "He has a girlfriend back at Dead End, doesn't he?"

"Carson wouldn't move here. Just me. He's twenty. A grown man. He'd probably appreciate the space from his father. He's never had the chance to strike out on his own. He was a senior in high school when the Epidemic broke. And of course I'd still visit Dead End, assuming my father lets me back in. The old man wasn't happy the first time I left home, to say the least. I was the intended heir. I was supposed to carry on the family legacy of winemaking. But, if he doesn't welcome me back…Carson will still visit Hillcrest. He might even become the new trader when I'm gone."

Dianne toys with the thick, graying-blonde strands of hair that have grown long and curl up at the back of his neck. She chews on her bottom lip.

"Too much too fast?" he asks.

"You won't miss them? Your family?"

"I will. But I'll miss Javier the most, the damn bastard."

She laughs.

"But I miss you when I'm at Dead End. More than I miss them when I'm here. And I'm like a third wheel there. That's not to say I don't have work, or I don't like the people, but…" He shakes his head. "I don't know. I just don't belong. I never have. And here…it feels right."

"Okay," she says quietly

He smiles that slow smile that makes her tingle just a bit. "Okay?"

"I mean, I have to clear it with the Council first."

[*]

"Hell yeah, let 'em move here!" Daryl says at the Council meeting that evening. "He can grow tobacco, roll cigarettes."

"Um….I don't think that's how we're going to want to use his talents," Rick says.

"Well, ain't the  _only_  way we'll use 'em," Daryl concedes.

"He can fish, too," Dianne says. She's meeting with the Council to ask them to allow Mason into the camp. "He hunts. Mostly birds. Ducks especially. And of course he's a good tracker."

"Not as good as Daryl," Carol insists.

"Well, no," Dianne agrees.

"This may bring our two camps closer together," Ezekiel suggests. "One of ours now resides at Dead End, and one of theirs shall join our ranks."

"Or it could drive us farther apart," Maggie counters, "if it pisses off his father to have him leave."

"I don't think we can make our decisions based on what might piss Amos off," Carol reasons. "Because that's probably a long list."

In the end, the Council votes unanimously to allow Mason to join their camp. Dianne delivers the news over the radio. "I've got a few loose ends to tie up here, darlin'," he tells her. "And then I'll be there the day after tomorrow."

[*]

Dianne paces the front porch. She looks at the radio that sits on the railing. Carol, who is sitting and patching the knee of Daryl's pants, asks, "No word from Mason?"

"He was supposed to be here over an  _hour_  ago," Dianne replies. "Maybe he got cold feet."

"I doubt that very much."

"But he's not answering the radio either." Dianne brings the radio to her lips, and presses the button. "Come in. Come in. This is Dianne."

Nothing.

"Maybe we should go check on him?" Carol asks.

"No. I don't want to seem…desperate."

"It was  _his_  idea, wasn't it?" Carol asks. "You know, it's okay for you to let him know just how much you care about him."

The radio crackles. Diane jerks it to her lips. "Come in!" she says anxiously. "It's Dianne."

Mason's slow drawl trickles through the speaker: "I'm going to have to delay my move, darlin'."

Dianne's hand tenses on the walkie talkie. "Change your mind?"

"Not a'tall. I'll come in three days. Sorry I didn't radio you sooner. It's been…hectic."

"Is something wrong?" Dianne asks.

"My father had a heart attack. The big one. We're burying him today. If you hear the faint echo of shot guns going off, don't worry. It's a salute."


	72. Chapter 72

A single drop of rain hits the surface of the pinewood as Amos's three surviving sons and son-in-law lower his coffin carefully into the yawning earth. His two surviving daughters and daughter-in-law each toss a single flower on top. The petals break free from the core, scattering soft white across the hard, brown pine.

Beside Rosita, on the other side of the grave, Javier stands, his jar firmly set. She can feel tension radiating off his muscles like a wave.

There's a moment of hesitation as Garret grabs the shovel and looks at Mason. Their eyes meet, and they seem to be silently deciding whether it should be the oldest son or the favored son who does the honors of tossing the first shovelful of earth onto the coffin. Dolly steps in, takes the shovel from Garret, and does the honors herself. Both men step back, seemingly satisfied by the solution.

When Colton begins passing shotguns down the line of siblings, however, Rosita's eyes grow wide. "What are they doing?" she whispers to Javier.

"Shotgun salute. It's a Weatherford funeral tradition."

Each sibling has just loaded one into the chamber, when Rosita rounds the grave toward them, waving a hand and saying, "Whoa! Think about that herd! Gunshots attract walkers."

"It's thirty miles off," Mason reminds her.

"The sound won't travel more than a few miles, especially not with all these trees," Colton agrees.

"We could hear your shots at Hillcrest sometimes," Rosita tells them.

"That's only eight miles away," Henrietta says. "Not thirty."

"The herd  _was_  thirty miles away," Rosita insists. "We haven't checked it forty-eight hours. We were planning to this morning." But then the old man died. "And if a group has broken off and gotten closer, and if the wind blows just right – "

"- Listen to her!" shouts someone from the crowd of field hands.

"Better safe than sorry!" another agrees.

"She knows what she's talking about!" a third cries. "She was the one who thought to take down the sign when none of you others did!"

Mason nods, making it clear he agrees, but he doesn't actually say anything. He's never held much power here, and because he announced he was leaving last night, he's lost what little influence he has. So Rosita turns instead to Garret, the heir of Dead End, whom she's been gradually working to befriend. "Don't you think?" she asks him.

Garret glances at his father's coffin and nervously taps his fingers on the barrel of the gun. He nods and passes his shotgun back to Colton. "Someone should p-pray," he says.

"I will," Henrietta says gently.

Straw hats and cowboy hats come off and heads are bowed. A light mist of rain accompanies the woman's prayer, and when it's over, shovels are seized by the male members of the Weatherford family - Garett, Colton, Mason, Eddie, and Carson. Javier takes the last of the six shovels, and the work of filling the grave beings. There's a brief, two-minute pitter-patter of full drops of rain, followed by a sudden stop, and the sun breaks through the clouds.

After the cross is erected, all of Dead End, except the watch, gathers beneath the reception tents in the courtyard before the big house for the wake.

The good wine flows. Laughter mingles with tears, rumors with truth, and grumblings with fears. Rosita hears the whispers of concern from outside the family – how will the Council break tie votes with only four members now? Who will hold Dead End together with Amos gone? Why should Garret inherit the mansion and the land, just because Amos willed it all to him? Isn't this land as much the fieldhands' as the children's now?

Rosita comes and sits at a round table with Garret, Colton, Henrietta, and Dolly, in a chair Mason has recently vacated to get more wine. She tells them of the whisperings she's heard. "This isn't good. There's fear, and there's confusion. I know this may not seem like the appropriate time to get political, but if you don't give them a sense of stability immediately, it could breed problems."

"Revolution, you mean?" asks Colton nervously.

"People  _need_  stability," Rosita says. "That's all." She turns her eyes to Garret. "And I know you already had a plan in place for a transition to a new government. They should know. Sooner rather than later. Just…think about it."

She passes Mason as she leaves the table, who pauses and says, "You and Javier look after my family when I'm gone, will you? See they don't do anything stupid. Like we almost did today."

She smirks.

Mason glances at a table where Carson sits with Garret's two teenage daughters. "Especially my boy."

"How did Carson take the news that you were leaving?" she asks.

He looks back at her. "Better than my father did, clearly."

Rosita shakes her head. "Don't do that to yourself. The news of you leaving wasn't what killed him."

"The timing was quite coincidental then."

"Colton said he was treating him for chest pains as long as four months ago. Don't tell me you're blaming yourself for this."

"Not really. But I'm sure my pa is. He's probably bitching to St. Peter at the pearly gates even as we speak."

Rosita laughs.

He glances at his son again, who is laughing. "Y'all two will watch out for Carson? See that he gets in on the trading trips so he's forced to visit his old man more than he wants to?"

"Well, he'll want to visit Elijah anyway. But I promise we'll watch out for him." She gives Mason a hug before leaving him to join Javier, who is sitting on a low brick garden ledge a way off from the tents, plucking grass. Each blade slides roughly from the ground, twirls around his fingers, and flies back to the earth. She sits beside him and slides an arm around his waist. "How are you?" she asks gently.

"I know you didn't think well of him," he answers, "but Amos was something like a padre to me. He gave me more trust and responsibility than my own father was ever willing to give me. He gave me a home when my ex-wife tore mine from me. This  _is_  my home. And I'm a little afraid of what's going to happen to it now."

She kisses his cheek. " _You're_  going to happen to it, mi amor. Amos wasn't leading most of these people.  _You_  were. You were doing it with his authority, but you  _were_. You still will. Whether you're on the Council or not."

He sighs. "I've been  _managing_  them, hermosa. Not  _leading_  them. In these days, people need an authoritarian father, not a farm manager. They need someone they can believe has all the answers, someone they can believe will protect them, and whose authority they will obey because they're worried little children. Amos was what he had to be."

"Maybe you don't give people enough credit," she insists. "Maybe they were children when this all started, but maybe they've grown." She's grown, after all. Daryl and Carol, Maggie, Rick and Michonne – they've all grown. No one would recognize any of them today, if they'd known them just three years ago. "And maybe what they really need now is a  _say_."

A voice clears at the portable microphone where people had previously been giving eulogy speeches. Javier and Rosita look in the direction of the sound. Colton stands there, scratching his ear. "Listen up, y'all. We've got a few announcements to make. I'm handing the microphone over to my brother now. You'll notice he isn't stuttering nearly as much as he used to." Colton nods in Rosita's direction. "Thanks, Rosita."

Garret takes the microphone. "I'm stepping d-down from the Council."

Murmurs of surprise and disbelief ripple beneath the tent and through the courtyard. Children who were playing stop playing.

"Politics aren't for me. I just want to do my work. Make this w-wine" he raises his glass "y'all love. Fix the equipment. Just wanted y'all to hear it from me. That's all I've got to s-say." He hands the microphone to his sister Dolly.

"As you know," she says, "in losing my father, we've lost a leader, a member of the Council, and our Council Chairman. With Garret steeping down, that opens another spot on the Council. I want to assure you all that you will experience no disruption in your rations, and no unnecessary increase in your work load, that the order you've come to expect at Dead End will continue. But it will continue with more input from outside this family. This biological family, I mean, because you are  _all_  family. And this land belongs to all of us. We'll be opening the two empty spots on the Council up for a general election. Everyone over the age of twelve will have one vote. Let's take a few days to mourn this man we buried today. Think about who you might like to serve you on this Council, and over the next week, Henrietta and Colton and I will take nominations. Anyone who is nominated by two people and accepts the nominations will be on the ballot. We'll hold a debate when the nominations are finalized, and the next day we'll hold the vote. In the meantime, please continue your celebration in honor of the man who secured for us this land. Now it's our turn to secure our future on it." She raises her wine glass.

Stunned silence follows, and then a slow clap from the elderly Juanita, whose old wedding ring Rosita wears. The woman has been sitting solemnly in a chair with her family, a cane resting by her side. Her hands slap together with more sound than Rosita would expect from such wrinkled appendages.

Gradually, others join in, and clapter fills the reception tents.

[*]

Daryl climbs the ladder to the platform of the watchtower. Carol slides the binoculars off her neck and hands them to him.

"Hear any gunshots?" he asks.

"No, I think they must have thought better of it, fortunately." When Carol overheard Mason on the radio, she seized it frantically to tell him not to do the salute, but he was already gone, and there was no response at Dead End. Here at Hillcrest, they've put noise restrictions in place. They're not hunting with guns at all for the moment. Daryl and Dianne use only their bows and arrows, and Jerry a spear. They have taken down four stray walkers this month by gunpoint from the watchtowers, but they have silencers for their rifles.

"Rosita maybe knocked some sense into 'em," Daryl speculates.

Carol smiles coquettishly at him. "You catch me anything tasty?"

"Still trackin' that sneaky deer. Yer traps caught another live rabbit though. 'S 'nother doe. Got to find us a buck 'fore Maggie can farm 'em. Enid and Elijah been fishin' with Morgan."

"Are they getting any better at it?"

The young lovers have been a slow study when it comes to hunting and fishing and old-fashioned farming, though Elijah's robot did make the early summer planting easier. Enid is successfully learning medicine from Elijah, and both are pretty good at killing walkers. But they need to learn to feed themselves better when the older generation is gone. Elijah, when he was on his own, survived solely by scavenging, and the day will come – and it won't be long now - when  _everything_  is expired.

Meanwhile, Henry is learning faster than either of his peers. He goes hunting with Jerry and Dianne on Mondays, milks the goat with Maggie on Tuesdays, tracks with Daryl on Wednesdays, fishes with Morgan on Thursdays, butchers with Jerry on Fridays, farms with Rick on Saturdays, and cooks with Carol on Sundays. His formal schooling – in literature, writing, history, math, and science - has declined to seven hours a week.

The feeling that they have to train up this next generation to survive the world  _as it is_  has become more urgent. Maybe they've had too much peace – too much time to feel their age. But none of them will be in this world forever.

"They caught a half dozen trout and a few bluegill. 'Cept I think Morgan caught most of those."

She sighs. "Henry's going to have to feed the entire camp when we're gone."

"Nah. Judith'll be able to do  _everything_."

She laughs. "I think you may be right about that."

Rick is already hammering gun safety rules into Judith's little brain. He's made her watch him load and unload guns and has let her hold some unloaded, though she doesn't quite have the reach and coordination to dry fire yet. She knows she can "look at daddy's guns" anytime she wants, as long as he is with her. The practice has, fortunately, dulled her early fascination for the weapons. Dianne has been teaching the girl to ride, while walking carefully alongside the horse to seize control when needed. Judith has helped Nabila pluck tomatoes in the greenhouse, and has pushed seeds into the earth in the plots. She's fed the goat and chicks with Maggie, and worked with Carol in the kitchen, measuring and dumping and stirring and sometimes making a bit of a mess.

"'N there's Gracie." The foundling is walking quite steadily now and has said about two dozen words. "'N H.G." Maggie's son has started to pull himself up on the coffee table in the library, and looks to be dangerous once he's walking. "'N Little D. Bet he's gonna turn out to be a real bad ass."

Carol puts a hand on his hip. "Like his godfather, huh?"

He shrugs, and she kisses him. "Well, I better get our fish fry started." She slaps him on the ass before heading down the ladder.


	73. Chapter 73

Rosita slams shut the passenger door and checks her rifle as Mason gets the pick-up started. After they scout out the present location of the walker herd, Mason will return to Dead End and pack up his things.

He winces and rubs his forehead.

"Hungover?" she asks as he backs out of the open garage and heads for the gate.

"My siblings and I may have imbibed a little excessively in the post-wake wake. Except Dolly. She's always sober, that one."

"Think she'll be chairman of the Council?" The Council will elect its own chairman, once the last two spots are filled.

"I don't doubt it."

As they roll through the great front gate of Dead End, Rosita says, "Carson looked a little worse for wear, too."

"He joined the grown-ups. And while he was drunk, he asked for Garret's second eldest daughter's hand in marriage."

"And what did Garret say?"

"Please take her off my hands."

Rosita laughs. "So are you staying for the wedding, then?"

"I'll come back for it." The truck rocks over the pavement as Mason pulls onto the highway from the dirt road. "They'll wait a few months, out of respect for my pa. A wedding on the heels of a funeral is in poor taste."

"I still think that's a bit skeevy, marrying your cousin, even if she's not blood related."

"They didn't grow up together. They met for the first time three years ago. It's a tiny world, and we're not all so lucky as to find a Javier or a Dianne."

"So are you and Dianne getting hitched, then?" Rosita asks.

"I don't know. Is there even a way to do that at Hillcrest?"

Rosita shrugs. "They have a book."  _They_. It's the first time she's thought  _they_  instead of  _we_. "All the couples wrote their names down in it, under the heading  _Marriages_  – Rick and Michonne, Carol and Daryl, Ezekiel and Nabila. Ezekiel and Nabila even had a little ceremony."

"But not our fellow scouts?"

"Jesus and Aaron? Not yet. And not Enid and Elijah, either, but they're young. So are you and Dianne going to do it?"

"I'm not sure Dianne would say yes if I asked. Her first marriage didn't go too well. She's letting me shack up with her for the time being. I'll leave it at that for now."

They drive in silence for several miles, until they spy Jesus and Aaron parked by the side of the road, sitting on the tailgate of their pick-up, kissing. Mason winces.

"Homophobe," Rosita teases.

"I can't help my natural instincts, only my actions." He turns off the truck.

"Personally, I hate  _all_  public displays of affection. Rick and Michonne are the  _worst_." She opens the passenger's door, and they both slide out of the truck.

Jesus hops down from the tailgate and strides toward them. "We're going on foot for the next mile to climb that hill," he turns and points "to survey the heard more closely. We don't want them to hear the trucks coming."

"The next mile?" Rosita asks. "But the herd's still another twelve miles from here."

Jesus sighs. "Not anymore, it's not." He points to a water tower in the field several yards from the road. "We scaled that to take a look. And it's about a mile from here, swarming in a quarry."

"Shiiiiiiit." Mason runs a hand over his mouth. "Just eighteen miles from Dead End now."

[*]

"We've got to divert it," Rick insists.

Aaron, Jesus, Mason, and Rosita have just made their report on the status of the herd.

"It's moving at a snail's pace," Mason says. "And it's being distracted by carrion along the way."

"Even so, be here in a week or two," Daryl says. "'M with Rick. Need to send it south."

"Toward Oceanside's new camp?" Jesus asks. "Now that's not very friendly."

"They's over two hundred miles," Daryl reasons.

"We could divert it east," Carol says. "Toward the ocean. Toward Oceanside's  _old_  camp."

"Make 'em take a walk off the pier?" Daryl asks.

"Something like that," Carol agrees. "We could use a similar procedure to the one we used on the herd in the quarry."

"Y'all have done this before?" Masons asks.

Rick nods.

"Not I," Ezekiel concedes, "but give me my role, and I shall play it."

"We don't have enough people to divert and hold down the fort here at Hillcrest." Rick looks at Rosita. "We're going to need people from Dead End. We're going to have to work  _together_  on this."

"I'm in," she replies. "Javier needs to be at Dead End though, to help keep it together in the aftermath of Amos's death. And we've got elections coming up in a week, so he needs to grease palms. But I'll go back now, see who I can talk into joining the mission."

"Try Colton," Mason says. "He likes adventure more than any of my other siblings. Henrietta's a great shot, if we end up needing a great shot. She  _might_  come. Don't bother with Garret or Dolly. Or Eddie or Candy. And Javier will tell you which of the field hands are most competent for this sort of thing."

"I'll gather party," Rosita agrees, "and bring them here tomorrow morning to plan. And then we can divert the next day."

[*]

When Daryl's done helping Mason to carry his things up to Dianne's room, he asks, "I get a smoke for my trouble?

Mason chuckles. "Only if I get a smoking buddy."

They go on to the back porch this time, and look out at the goat grazing in the tall grass. They've fenced in the back yard for Daisy, and stable her in the barn at night. Judith is out there with Rick and Michonne. The baby sleeps across Michonne's chest, and Rick crouches down to keep an eye on Judith as she attempts to feed Daisy a dandelion from her hand.

"Nice place you've built here," Mason observes.

"Ain't like ya didn't help. Gettin' us sweet deals with the trades."

"That was all Javier."

Daryl blows out a stream of smoke over the rail. "Doubt that. It was  _some_  Javier, but I bet he'd of held back more if ya weren't pushin' 'em. Man seems a little high strung."

Mason shrugs.

"How's Rosita settlin'?"

"Javier's treating her well if that's what you're worried about. They're happy. As happy as two high-strung people can be."

Daryl chuckles. They smoke in silence as they watch the little family leave the field and the goat graze her way toward the fence line. They ease into rickety rocking chairs, and Daryl stretches out his legs and looks down at the black patch Carol has sewn into his knee. She's put a yellow smiley face on the center of it, which he didn't notice before. He wonders if people have been laughing at him all day.

Mason laughs at it now.

"Hey, just means I got me a woman," he grumbles defensively.

Masons smiles. "I believe I've got myself one, too."

Daryl rocks in silence for a bit, and then says, "Sorry 'bout your daddy."

Mason throws the last of his butt on the porch and grinds it out beneath his heel, a little roughly. "Why? The old man was too long for this world."

"But he was still yer daddy."

Mason lights up a second cigarette.

Daryl finishes off his and grinds it out on the arm of the rocking chair. "Hell, my daddy used to beat the shit out me, and I still felt it when he died, ya know? Dunno why. There's relief, but…somethin' else, too."

"Regret," Mason says, his voice choked. He fishes into his pocket for another cigarette and hands it over. "Over the relationship you never had." A flame flicks out from his silver lighter, and Daryl leans into it.

He puffs his cigarette to lit, and then leans back in his chair again. "Maybe."

"As along as he was alive," Mason continues, "there was still a chance. A faint  _chance_  that he could say he was sorry, and that you could come to forgive him. But death closes the door on chance."

Mason pretends that the cigarette is making him cough, and that the smoke is making his eyes water, and Daryl pretends to believe him.

[*]

Carol traces the sinews of Daryl's arm. The kerosene lamp flickers lightly on the nightstand, a low, blue-yellow glow. A muscle in his arm ripples like the flame. "You're tense," she says.

"Worried 'bout this damn herd. Way Rosita described it, bigger 'n last one we dealt with. Gonna be risky, divertin'."

"It's shame  _we_  don't have a helicopter."

He rolls on his side and draws her back against his chest. "Can't let it destroy what we've built here." He buries his face against her neck. "Built us a real home. 'N this one's gotta be the last one."

"For  _us_ ," Carol agrees. "Those kids, though, and their grandkids, and the alliance they make…they're going to overflow these hills." She turns to him, and they make love quietly beneath the kaleidoscopic light-shadows on the ceiling, finding hope in one another's bodies.


	74. Chapter 74

The Hillcrest Council – as well as Aaron, Jesus, and Mason - sit around the dining room table as Rick leads the arriving Dead Enders inside. A single robin props itself on the window sill outside, tilting its head and chirping an early morning song.

Colton Weatherford winks at Maggie when he walks into the dining room, and she rolls her eyes and says, "Say hello to your wife for me."

Rosita has also brought a man who looks to be in his early thirties. His nut-brown hair is mussed, because he's taken off his straw hat, which he now holds in his left hand. His hazel eyes dart with caution about the room, taking in the Council with reservation. The sleeves of his white, canvas shirt are rolled up to reveal a pair of sinewy arms and a pale line of skin where his golden farmer's tan ends.

Behind him trails Carson.

Mason bolts up from his chair. "No," he says. "No, no. This is far too dangerous, son. You need to be at home at Dead End when this happens."

Carson his father deliberately. "I'm a grown man. And we don't even live in the same camp anymore. I make my own decisions."

Mason grits his teeth but settles back in his chair.

"This is Daniel," Rosita tells the table. "Dead End's construction foreman. He's agreed to help. And you've met Colton and Carson."

Maggie introduces the people at the table to Daniel, who says "Pleased to meet you" after each name.

"Have a seat," Carol tells the Dead Enders.

Colton sits down next to Rosita near the end of the table, while Daniel pulls out the empty chair across from Maggie and Carson settles next to him.

"People don't like to leave Dead End," Rosita says. "I'm sorry. These are the only three people I could talk into helping. Javier will come if we need him, but it's best he stay if he can."

"I don't think we'll need him," Rick says. "We're going to lead the herd ten miles away, toward the east like we planned, speed ahead of it, and then back track home. We won't need more than a couple vehicles to lead, and some people to stay behind to pick off any deserters from the herd."

A map rustles as Maggie spreads it across the dinning room table. Jesus has put a solid black line across all blocked routes he and Aaron have encountered in their supply runs and scouting expeditions. "I don't think that's going to work. If we lead them east, we have to take one of these two roads. Which means the only unblocked escape route back home is directly parallel to the one the herd will be on, with only a median of wild grass between them. So the vehicles will pass the herd again, and the herd will turn and go after the vehicles. We need to lead them south, where there are better and more distant escape routes."

"We agreed not to do that," Rick insists. "Because Oceanside is south of us."

Carol glances at Daryl and then returns her attention to Maggie.

"We're not going to divert the herd. We're going to  _trap_  it." Maggie points to a big X that marks the current location of the herd on the map. There are two routes highlighted in yellow and orange and a circle around a spot about three miles south of the herd. "See this route?" Maggie runs her finger along the yellow, highlighted path that spills into the green circle. "If we can lead the herd down it, it ends in a gravel quarry that Aaron and Jesus have scouted out."

"The quarry is dug out of the earth so that the walls rise at least fifty feet all around," Aaron explains, "except for a single entry point that's about thirty feet wide."

"If we can lead the herd into that quarry through the entry," Maggie suggests, "we can trap them in there."

"How?" the newcomer Daniel asks.

"We sneak around the herd and enter the quarry from this direction." Maggie runs her finger across the orange path, which comes up behind the quarry, and then runs it around the green circle to the entrance. "Rosita sets up a series of explosions in the mountains of gravel at the entrance."

"There are two very tall, very large hills of gravel on both sides of the entry gap," Aaron confirms. "When they both come down at once, they should create a fifteen-foot high wall of gravel across the entrance. The walkers won't be able to climb it."

Maggie nods to Carson. "And since you're helping us, maybe you and Elijah can help design the remote detonators for the bombs."

"Sure," Carson replies.

"To make the bombs, I'll need fertilizer and a few other supplies from Dead End," Rosita says, looking at Colton.

Colton nods. "Can do."

"I can help," Daniel says. "I used to be in construction. I've worked in detonation. Bringing down old buildings and such."

"Good," Maggie tells him. "And if we plant explosives in the other piles farther into the quarry and se them off after the walkers are trapped, we'll rain down enough gravel to bury a lot of the walkers, too. Those that aren't buried will still be trapped between the walls."

"But how do we get them  _in_  there?" Daniel asks.

"Live bait," Maggie replies calmly.

Daniel peers at her curiously. "Pardon?"

She nods to Daryl. "Our man here will take this path to get  _in front_  of the herd," she runs her finger along the orange path behind and around the quarry until it meets the yellow path in front and reaches the X. "Then he'll turn around and lead the herd on his motorcycle. He's done it before."

"Only that time, I was leadin' 'em  _out_  a quarry," Daryl observes.

"Daryl will drive straight into the quarry, to the far end of it," Maggie continues, "leading them to stream inside after him. When there are as many in as will fit, we'll detonate those piles of gravel and seal off the entrance."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Carol says. "How will Daryl get  _out_?"

"There's a ladder on the far wall," Jesus assures her.

"He'll scale it," Maggie agrees. "And then he'll come down another ladder on the other side, where the trucks will be parked and waiting."

"Whoa, whoa whoa," Daryl says, "How will my  _bike_  get out?"

"It won't," Maggie tells him. "You'll have to sacrifice it."

Daryl shakes his head.

"You can get a new one, brother," Rick tells him. "Plenty of bikes still around."

Daryl mutters something underneath his breath.

"I'm a little more concerned about losing  _you_." Carol puts a hand on Daryl's arm and looks at Aaron and Jesus. "How  _long_  is this quarry? How close are the walkers going to have to get to him before they all get inside?"

"Pretty damn close," Jesus admits. "We need to get them all the way in to fit as many as possible, and it's not as if they'll spread out."

Carol shoots Daryl a nervous glance. "Be fine," he says. "Can climb up a bit, stay out of reach 'til they all get in."

Carol imagines all those grasping limbs, hands clawing for Daryl's ankles.

"We'll have to seal off the entrance as soon as the quarry is full to the back of walkers," Maggie continues. "Which will leave some walkers on the outside of the walls. So we'll need marksmen on top of the quarry walls to pick the remnant off. I was thinking Carol, Rick, Michonne, Aaron, and Mason. Can you shoot well, Colton?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then Colton, too. Jesus will keep watch by the vehicles, and I'll join the marksmen."

"What?" Daniel says. " _You're_  going?" He glances down at her prosthetic foot.

"Sure. I can climb the ladder to the watch stand here. The one to the quarry is much higher, but I'll manage. And I'm a great shot."

Daniel laughs. "And tough as nails, apparently."

"How many walkers do you think will be shut out after we bring down the gravel wall?" Rick asks.

"It depends if they fill in to the sides of the quarry at all," Aaron replies. "But they'll mostly be going for Daryl, so it will be more of a center mass. I'd guess at least two hundred will be cut off outside, maybe three hundred."

"That's a  _lot_  to pick off," Carol says. "And that's a lot of ammo. We'll want at least six hundred rounds, in case we miss some initial shots. And that's – what – over 40 walkers a person to bring down?"

"We've all brought down more," Maggie says.

"I haven't," Colton admits. "Not in one afternoon. I mean, I shot forty in a  _week_  once."

"Can join in the shootin' once 'm up the ladder," Daryl says.

"And I can shoot after Daniel and I detonate everything," Rosita adds. "And after he detonates, Daniel can shoot, too. Can't you?"

"I'm a decent shot."

"So then we're talking maybe thirty a piece?" Carol reasons. "That's perfectly doable, and it would be good target practice, but aren't we trying to conserve ammunition here? For the future? For hunting and watch keeping and, God forbid, invaders?"

"What if we managed to get more of the undead in the quarry?" Carson asks. "What if we caused them to spread out and fill in the sides by using more bait on each side?"

"There's just the one ladder on the far wall of the quarry," Jesus says. "People wouldn't be able to escape the herd if they moved to the sides to lure the walkers to spread out."

"Who says it has to be  _human_  bait?" Carson asks. "Why not an animal? A big rat or a rabbit or something?"

"Because a rabbit or a rat can't be trained to lead the undead, son," Mason replies.

"It could lead them if it was strapped to my remote-controlled robot," Carson says. "Elijah and I could use  _both_  of the robots we built. We could set them inside the quarry, and when Daryl gets there, he can go straight back, and Elijah and I can control the robots to move along the sides of the quarry – " He moves his fingertips in a half circle on the dark wood of the table – "spread out the herd to fit it all in. We could even put MP3 players with speakers on top of the cages to play music. They're drawn by sound, too, right?"

Mason nods.

"I like this plan," Rick says.

Mason smiles proudly at his son.

"I like it, too," Maggie agrees.

"I mean, I'd hate to lose our robots," Carson says with a wince. "We'd have to build them again from scratch. But we've already done the next round of planting. And they were prototypes anyway. We've got better ideas for the next generation."

"Can we put explosives on them, too?" Daniel asks. "Since you're going to lose them anyway, once they're in, we could detonate them and blow up more walkers while we're at it."

"I'm getting the impression you like to blow stuff up," Maggie says.

Daniel shrugs and gives a crooked, dimpled smile. "It was fun watching buildings come down. It's been awhile since I've blown anything up. Now I just build fences and watch stands, garden walls and mills. I never get to  _demolish_  anything."

"We could do that," Carson says. "If you and Rosita build the bombs."

"Then maybe we don't need to use Daryl as bait at all," Carol suggests. "Just lead the herd the entire way with the robots."

"We don't have that kind of range on the remotes," Carson tells her. "No more than a mile, max. And we couldn't see them to control them. If they're in the quarry, we can see them from the quarry wall."

"'N that bait ain't gonna be big enough to get 'em to walk three miles anyhow," Daryl says. "Might work once they's in the quarry, but yer gonna need me gettin' em there. 'N once 'M there…only way out is to go in and scale that ladder. If I veer off on my bike down the road, they'll just follow."

Carol sighs. "I suppose you're right."

"Be fine," he assures her.

"And what shall be my contribution to this plan?" Ezekiel asks. He's been silently observing the proceedings. "I haven't heard my name mentioned."

"You'll hold down the fort," Maggie says. "Here at Hillcrest."

"But we have Jerry and Tara and Nabila and Morgan for that."

"We need someone on the  _Council_  to stay at home," Maggie says. "And I don't think Nabila would protest, given her condition."

Ezekiel's eyes grow wide. "She  _told_  you? We agreed not to announce it until – "

"I  _guessed_. She hasn't been in the fields. And the morning sickness is obvious."

Ezekiel chuckles. "Well, I guess the cat is, as the old adage goes, out of the bag." He gets a series of hearty congratulations, and Rick slaps his back. Ezekiel grins through it all.

"So should our Councils – or their respective representatives – " Maggie looks at Colton – "vote on the plan?"

Colton raises his hand. "I'm in favor. It's not like I have any better ideas. I'm just along for the ride." He winks at Maggie. "And the gorgeous company."

"Lay off the lady, sir," Daniel tells him. "She's married." He looks at the wedding ring Maggie's never taken off.

"No, she's not," Colton says. "She's widowed."

"Well,  _you're_  married," Daniel reminds him, but then looks back at Maggie with curiosity.

"And our Council?" Maggie asks, raising her hand. "Do y'all approve?"

One by one, the hands of the Hillcrest Council members stretch upward.

"Then let's start putting this plan in motion," Rick says, lowering his hand and pushing back his chair with a scrape. "We have to move now, before that herd moves any closer."


	75. Chapter 75

Daryl runs a hand over the smooth leather of his motorcycle seat. "Saying your goodbyes?" Carol asks as she strolls up behind him.

"Spent  _hours_  detailin' 'er."

"Well, I guess you'll just have to turn your attention on me now," Carol teases. "I wish somebody would  _stroke_  me like that."

"Stahp." Daryl says with a ducked head and a light blush, but he look up as a pick-up truck rumbles up the dirt road. It's Carson returning with his robot, and Daniel and Rosita with the finished bombs. But there's something else strapped in the bed of the truck: a motorcycle.

Daniel hops out of the driver side, his brown workman's boots hitting the earth, and strolls over to Daryl. "Colton can't come after all. He ran into a bit of a family emergency. His boy broke his arm climbing a tree, and he's busy setting it and making a cast and generally keeping an eye on the kid. But he  _did_  want to contribute. So he's offering a sacrifice." Daniel extends a hand back toward the motorcycle. "Colton likes to ride, too. He's got  _three_  of those he and his brother Garrett have fixed up."

Daryl grins. "Hell yeah! It runs well?"

"Give her a spin," Daniel says.

Daryl does, up and down the dirt road leading to the inn. When he finally stops and dismounts, everyone who is joining the mission is lingering around the pick-ups. The cages have been strapped to the robots in the bed of one truck. Live field rats scurrying between the bars. Jesus is waiting beside his pick-up, where some water and extra ammo is loaded.

"Runs great," Daryl says. "Ain't as nice as  _mine_ , but it'll do."

"We better put it in the bed of one of the trucks," Daniel suggests. "I know we're going around the herd to get to the quarry, but we don't want too much noise on the way."

"Good idea," Maggie agrees with him, and Daryl helps Daniel slide the motorcycle into the bed of Jesus's pick-up.

Maggie and Michonne kiss their baby boys goodbye. Maggie hands H.G. over to Enid, who settles him on her hip as she kisses Elijah. "Be  _careful_ ," she tells her boyfriend, who promises he will.

Michonne settles John Daryl into the sling across Nabila's chest. "I've heard he might have a playmate in seven or eight months," Michonne tells her. "Congratulations."

Nabila glances at the stand where Ezekiel is keeping watch and raises her eyebrow at him.

"He didn't tell," Michonne assures her. "Maggie guessed."

Meanwhile, Dianne kisses Mason. "Come back in one piece," she tells him. "I'd join you, but we're down to five adults here as is."

" _Six_ ," Enid corrects her.

"Six," Dianne agrees with an indulgent smile.

The team sets off, tense and cautious, but eager to end the threat that lurks beyond their borders.

[*]

The quarry is an unusual, stand-alone structure with high, thick, stone walls and only one-way in. The highway runs past the dirt-road entrance, but one can't drive to the top of the quarry. There's no land directly surrounding it. Maybe at one time the land met the walls, but it's since been dug out for the dirt roadway, so now the quarry is a perfect pen: a giant jail cell of sorts.

The dirt roadway forms a square around the quarry, and behind it, rock-like hills rise. There's no way out but around one of the two sides and back to the highway. Then they can go in one of two directions from there – left, and the roundabout backway they came – or right, and toward the herd. There's a ladder on the inside  _and_  the outside of the far wall, so they will be able to get down on the other side to leave once they trap most of the walkers inside and shoot the few that can't be trapped.

The team gets to work positioning the robots and bombs, double-checking the strength of the ladders, driving the two pick-up trucks on the dug-out road around the back of the far wall, unloading the motorcycle, and scaling the outside ladder to the top of quarry wall to take their positions.

Carol lingers below. She puts a hand on Daryl's waist, just above his hip, and says, "Be careful."

"Ya know I done this 'fore."

"Yeah. So don't get  _cocky_."

He smirks. He doesn't admit he's nervous, but she can feel the tension in his muscles when she hugs him. She's glad to feel it. It means he'll be cautious and not let the herd too close. They kiss on the dirt road before the stone wall, until Jesus mutters from behind them, "Get a room."

Daryl slides from her arms, mounts his borrowed motorcycle, and waves goodbye over his shoulder as he roars arounds the back wall of quarry to the front, and onto the dirt road that hits the highway.

Carol scales the outside ladder. When she gets to the top of the wall, she finds a sea of anxious faces. Daniel and Rosita examine the detonators in their hands. Carson and Elijah move the sticks on their remotes to test their robots in the quarry below. Michonne checks her safety. Maggie, who is sitting down, loads an extra magazine from the green ammo case that is sitting on the wall. Rick makes sure his walkie talkie is working. Aaron tests the scope of his rifle as he gazes across the quarry to the highway. Mason paces the wall, gripping his rifle in one hand and adjusting his cowboy hat with the other.

Carol looks down in the quarry, at the mountains of gravel and the ladder Daryl will climb. Then she turns around and looks down at Jesus leaned back casually against the closed tailgate of one of the trucks on the dirt road. She waves to him, and he waves back.

And then the waiting begins.

[*]

Maggie's legs are stretched out across the wide wall so that her heels are near the edge. She hates that she had to sit down as soon as she reached the top of the wall. The climbing caused her more pain than she expected. There's a dull ache in her stump. She hates that she's lost so much physical power. But she hasn't lost her mind, or life, or her shooting skills – and she reminds herself of that.

Daniel sits down next to her, cross-legged, like a child on the story mat in Kindergarten. He scratches his forehead beneath his Baltimore Orioles baseball cap. He sets the detonator on the wall beside himself.

"You from Maryland?" she asks, glancing at the cap.

He nods. "Near D.C., originally. You?"

"Georgia."

"How long do you think it will take for Daryl to get back here?"

"I don't know, but herds move slowly. I'll get up when Rick gives the word they're near."

"You  _could_  shoot in prone position," he suggests.

"Then I can't move with them. But hopefully, with those robots to pack them in, there won't be many left outside the walls." They're expecting fewer than eighty to be trapped outside.

Daniel nods to her wedding ring. "How long were you married?"

"Less than two years. But it felt like we knew each other forever."

"I hear that's what it's like for people who meet after the Epidemic."

She glances at his wedding ring. "You met your wife before?"

"Yeah. Only a year before. We were on our honeymoon when it all started. Staying at your Hillcrest B&B as a matter of fact."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but people started dying and transforming. We didn't have guns on us, and we didn't know how to kill them just yet, so we just took off, looking for help. We didn't know almost everyone in the world was sick. We ran into Colton Weatherford on the highway. He stopped us, told it was overrun that way, and took us back to Dead End, back when Amos was still taking people in. Been there ever since."

"So it's not just field hands and the Weatherford family there?" Maggie asks.

"Mostly, but also a few neighbors. A few strays like me. I'm not much of a farmer, but I've been in construction since I was 18, so I was able to lead the building of Dead End's gristmill using the plans in that book. Built the watchtowers, too. Some of the fortifications. So I definitely earned my place."

"And what does your wife do there?"

"She did laundry mostly. Patching clothes. But…she's gone now." He grits his teeth, and his hazel eyes glisten slightly. "I was on watch during the uprising. I wasn't there to protect her. She was asleep when they busted in. And they…" He shakes his head. "I lost her. But at least I got to kill the guy who did it."

"And did it help?" Maggie asks.

"No," he admits.

"I never got to kill the man who killed my husband." She looks over at Rick, whose back is to her as he scans the horizon. She's forgiven him for sparing Negan. The bastard came in handy a month later, when they were dealing with another threat from a group called The Whisperers, and he died in the fight against them. But the Hilltop was eventually lost to those other attackers anyway. "I wanted to kill him. I thought it would…" She sighs and shakes her head.

"Nothing will bring them back," Daniel says. "Not the way we  _want_  them back."

"No," she agrees. "And peace…I guess that just comes with time."

"Maybe it never quite comes," he suggests. "And maybe it shouldn't. It's a brutal world. Why should we be at peace with it?"

"Not  _with_  it," Maggie says quietly. "But  _in_  it. It would nice to be at peace  _in_  it."

"And you're not?"

"Sometimes I am. Like when I watch my son sleeping…sometimes I am."

"Me too. For me it's the Saturday night jam session on the picnic tables outside the servant's quarters. Javier's a good guitarist, and so is Mateo. We've got a fiddler, and I'm not too bad on harmonica."

Maggie smiles. "You have a  _band_?"

He laughs. "Always wanted one in high school, but I never had time. I had to work to help out my mom and sisters."

"I worked through high school, too, but on the family farm. I kind of resented it at the time, but I sure am glad for the skills now." She frowns at her foot. "Even if all I can do is milk and advise."

"Well, you give good advice," Daniel assures her. "This was a great plan. Improved by freak-brain over there," he points to Carson, "but a good plan to start."

[*]

When Daryl nears the herd, it's two miles closer to Dead End than it was yesterday. At the approaching roar of the motorcycle, the mass begins to turn. Daryl's heart drops into his stomach as the gray sea of walkers shifts before him. He's seen the herd before, form the hills through binoculars. He knows how big it is. But the size just  _feels_  different when he's this close to it. And the size  _is_ different, he realizes. It's larger. It's picked up some more walkers since yesterday. They must have come from the woods along the highway.

The front line of walkers sniffs the air, and the buzz-like murmur that permeated the herd before grows to a gnashing growl. The sounds sends shivers down Daryl's spine, but no one would know it by the easy way he sits on the now stopped bike, heels on the ground, staring straight into that first pair of undead eyes, which belong to a decaying figure clothed in a fading, fraying, house dress. "C'mon, ya ugly skank. Ya hungry?"

The once-woman thrashes its wrinkled, rotting jaw and jerks forward, with a dozen more on either side of her, and hundreds and hundreds behind her.

Daryl puts his feet back on the bike, makes a narrow U-turn directly in front of the herd, shoots forward fifty yards, and then slows to a four-mile-an-hour pace.

The herd follows.

[*]

"I wish you'd stayed at home with the baby," Rick says, glancing at Michonne, who stands beside him scouring the distance with her scope.

She lowers her rifle. "Well that wasn't going to happen. You know I'm one of our best shots now. I'm better than you."

"I'm aware."

"So if one of us was going to stay at home," Michonne reasons, "Why shouldn't it have been you?"

"Because I can't exactly feed the baby from my breasts."

"Well, I pumped before I left. And if worst comes to worse, Nabila can."

The walkie talkie on Rick's hip crackles. He lifts it to his mouth. "Come in."

"On my way, herd in tow," Daryl says. "'Bout four miles out now. Havin' to stop 'n wait for 'em to catch up. Slow movin' fuckers. And there might be a hundred more 'n yesterday."

"Damn," Rick mutters. "Well, thank God for Carson's plan B. The robots should help get  _most_  of them in. And we've got enough ammo even if somehow two hundred get shut out."

"Radio ya when 'm within a mile."

In the background, Rick and Michonne can hear the hive-like buzz of the herd.

[*]

"We're all sorry about scaring Elijah that day he passed the stop sign," Daniel tells Maggie. "I don't think we would have  _really_  shot him. We were just pumping our shotguns to load them."

"Oh, I think you  _would_  have," Maggie says, "but I think your people made up for it by saving my life." She nods to Mason, who is pacing the wall nervously. "That one there gave me his blood."

"Well, he's one of  _your_  people now."

Maggie nods to Rosita. "And she's one of yours."

"Who knows, maybe we'll all be one people one day." Daniel smiles. "One church, two campuses. That's what my church used to say."

"I guess it will depend on how the new Dead End Council feels," Maggie replies. "When do you have elections?"

"Monday we have nominations. Then elections a few days after that."

"Are you going to nom – "

Rick lets out a low, shrill whistle, and Daniel scrambles to his feet. He reaches down to help Maggie to hers. In their standing position, they can see the massive, milling herd coming down the highway, and Daryl, riding ever so slowly before it.


	76. Chapter 76

Daryl feels like he did as a small boy cowering in the dark root cellar when his daddy was on a bender. In a dank corner he would sit and hope the old man wouldn't think to look for him down there. With the fine blonde hairs of his arms on edge, he would wait, afraid to move an inch too far in either direction, not wanting to look up through the cracks in the wood door above lest he spy the dull gray eyes of his father, but not being able to resist the urge to look up either.

Daryl cranes his neck back and looks behind his motorcycle.

Immediately, he wishes he hadn't. The hobbling herd's empty eyes train on him, seeing but not seeing, and their decaying jowls grind in hungry expectation. He looks forward again, breathes in, and fights back the fear that demands he pick up speed. His back teeth grind against each other, and he wishes the tension in his muscles would unwind. He's done this before. In Alexandria. He did it, and it worked, so why is he so much more nervous this time?

Maybe because Alexandria was not his  _home_. This time, he's not directing a herd from a community he's uncomfortably inserted himself into, but a community he's helped to build from the ground up. A community where his godchildren are now home playing or napping, where he works with his brothers and sisters to plan for a lasting future, where he shares a room with his  _wife_.

It's  _his_  home that's at risk now, the first true home he's ever really had.

[*]

At first, Carol thinks everything is going to go according to plan. And at first, it does.

Daryl swings into the entrance of the quarry, driving between the two great mounds of gravel, and the herd follows. The herd is too wide to fit through the entry, but it begins to funnel inside, jamming up at the opening and pushing through bit by bit.

Carson and Elijah begin to play music from the speakers mounted to the cages that hold the field rats. They drive their robots slowly along the outer left and right rim of the quarry. The herd peels apart, with two streams following the robots, and one stream following Daryl straight back to the ladder. Hundreds of undead bodies begin to fill the quarry.

Daryl makes it almost to the ladder and jumps off the bike while it's still moving. The hem of his pants catches on some metal piece, and he falls.

That's the first time Carol's heart skips.

He gets free quickly, scurries to a standing position, and lunges for the ladder. He seizes the bottom rung and begins to clamor up. The fingers of the first grasping walker graze his heel.

That's the second time Carol's heart skips.

Halfway down the left wall, the stream of walkers following the robot overtake it before Elijah can drive it far enough ahead of them. The cage is torn apart, the rat devoured, and the robot crushed by the piling-on walkers, who also manage to trigger the bomb. There's a loud bang, and then blood, guts, and limbs explode a few feet into the air and scatter.

The sound of the explosion draws the walkers from the ladder back to the center left of the quarry, which forms a blockage that leaves less room for the flood of undead to funnel through the entrance.

Daryl, who is halfway up the ladder by now, scurries back down, shouts and waves, and lures some of the walkers back toward him again.

That's the third time Carol's heart skips.

He's  _too close_. One monster seizes his ankle. Carol looks down her scope and trains her rifle on a spot between its eyes. She's ready to shoot, if need be, but Daryl smashes down his other boot on the top of the walker's head until the creature release its grip and stumbles back. Then Daryl drags himself up two more rungs, where he hovers, barely out of reach. It works. The walkers return for him.

Hundreds of the undead are gathered beneath the ladder now, gnashing for Daryl above, while hundreds more are pursuing the second robot around the right rim of the quarry, leaving a path for more creatures to funnel in. The walkers only go right or straight now, however: after Carson's robot or after Daryl, and soon the entrance is clogged again.

"We need to get them to the left," Maggie says. "Lure them there somehow, free the blockage."

Michonne nods. "I'll try." She walks around the top edge of the wall to the left-hand side, about half way toward the entrance, where she lays flat on her stomach, hangs partway over the edge, slaps her hand against the side, and shouts loudly for the walkers to come toward the fresh meat.

Rick joins her, adding to the lure.

It works.

At first.

A clump of walkers peels off to the left after the unreachable Mason and Aaron, allowing yet more walkers through the entry way. But something else happens. Something they didn't plan on.

[*]

Maggie is looking through the scope of her rifle when she spies the deer. Likely fleeing some lesser predator, it blindly runs across the highway and onto the dirt road. When it spies the herd jostling outside the entry to the quarry, it tears off around the outside wall toward the left – where it will eventually have to turn again – straight into the path of the trucks and Jesus, who is guarding them.

The outside gaggle of walkers – there are hundreds still jammed at the entrance to the quarry - peel off in lurching pursuit. Maggie stumble runs on her prosthetic foot along the wall to a spot where she can get a clearer line of vision. Her first frantic shot misses, but the second and third bring down the deer before it can reach the end of the wall. The deer's collapse halts the herd – for a moment. When the poor animal crumbles to the orange-brown clay dirt, the walkers fall upon it, tearing it to shreds, and jostling with each other for position over the meal.

Inside the quarry, the walkers crush and tear apart the second robot and the rat. The attached bomb explodes and sends guts and decaying flesh flying into the herd.

Outside the quarry, while some walkers finish devouring the deer, the rest sniff the air, catch scent of Jesus, and begin to lurch and growl their way toward the back of the quarry. As they move, some of the walkers inside the quarry turn and begin to push back toward the entrance, following the hungry sound of the smaller herd. By instinct, they know their fellow monsters have found fresh food.

"We have to close off the entrance!" Maggie yells. "Now! Before any more get out! Now! Close it now!"

Daniel and Rosita slam their palms down on the detonators for the gravel piles at the entrance.

[*]

Carol has prepared for the explosions by rolling orange rubber shooting plugs into her ears, but the sound still leaves them ringing. The gravel shifts in a dusty gray avalanche, rains down on the walkers below, buries a hundred or more alive, and seals off the entrance to the quarry. Daryl's body jerks in surprised reaction to the explosion, and he swings for a moment by one hand from the ladder.

That's the fourth time Carol's heart skips.

With the strength of one arm, Daryl swings himself back and regains his two-handed grip on the ladder. He begins to climb.

Frantically, and caught up in the rush of the moment, Daniel and Rosita raise their hands to hit the detonators for the other two mountains of gravel located farther into the quarry and closer to the ladder.

"Wait!" Carol shouts. "Daryl's still down th – "

The bombs explode, and more gravel rains down, sending up a cloud of dust so thick that it's impossible to see the quarry below.

That's the fifth time Carol's heart skips, because she knows Daryl, even if he's managed to stay clinging to the ladder, is breathing in all that dust.

Through the ringing in her ears, Carol can hear Aaron shouting: "They're headed toward Jesus! Fire! Fire! Fire!"

The marksmen open fire on the outside walkers that are streaming toward Jesus, except for Carol, who fans an arm in front of her face in an attempt to cut through the smoggy cloud to see the ladder down below.

She  _hears_  Daryl before she sees him – the clang and clatter of his boots against the iron rungs, and louder than that – his hacking cough. She shoulders her rifle and helps to drag him to the top of the wall, where he collapses against her chest, gasping for breath.

Elijah makes his way over, swings his backpack off his shoulder, and pulls out an inhaler.

"Carol!" Maggie calls between shots. "A little help!"

Carol, leaving Daryl in Elijah's care, eases out from under her husband and scurries to her feet. Jesus is in the truck now, but the engine is grinding as he tries to start it. The battery must have died.

Carol and Maggie take down the walkers nearest his door, giving him a chance to open it, while Mason and Aaron take down the walkers pressed against the hood and the rest of the marksmen concentrate on the walkers still flooding around the corner of the quarry wall. In the anxiety of the moment, they're  _all_  firing a bit wildly, sometimes taking as many as four shots to bring a single walker down.

Jesus stands on the running board of the pick-up, hefts himself onto the roof of the truck, clamors down the windshield onto the hood, and takes a running leap into the bed of the second truck, which is closer to the ladder. He falls when he lands, and a walker seizes his ankle and prepares to lower its head to chomp. Carol, with no time to pause to take careful aim, squeezes off three rapid shots, hitting the walker's shoulders and back until one finally explodes its head.

Jesus scurries to his feet and climbs onto the roof of the pick-up, where he shouts, "I don't have the keys to this one!"

"I have them!" Daniel yells. "Catch!" Daniel tosses the keys below. His aim is good, and when Jesus holds his hand out, it seems the keys will land straight in his palm, but the silver metal slips through his fingertips, slides off the roof, and lands on the earth at the side of the truck, to be pummeled beneath the oncoming herd.

"Get up the ladder!" Aaron cries. "It's clear in front of the ladder!"

Jesus runs straight down the windshield, across the hood of the truck, and takes a flying leap. His boots thud to the ground, but he doesn't stumble. He just keeps running as the herd turns from the truck and lurches after him. The marksmen pick off the closest ones until Jesus is safely on the ladder and up far enough that they can't reach him.

Then Maggie yells, "Hold your fire! Hold your fire! We're wasting too much ammo!"

The gunshots peter off to one last pop, while the walkers continue to gnash below.

When Jesus is safely atop the wall, Aaron embraces him. Carol takes a moment to check on Daryl, who is still sitting, but seems to be breathing much better now. She slides down next to him and wraps an arm around him. Wearily, he leans his head against her shoulder, his chest still rising and falling with his breaths – but they're more even now.

"I gave him a bunch of albuterol," Elijah says. "Seems to be working."

Carol kisses Daryl's forehead, and he murmurs, "Cuddlin's a hell of a lot better after sex."

"Stop," she tells him. "Stop talking. Just  _breathe_."

Behind them, they can hear the unholy growl of the remnant of the herd – four hundred walkers, at least, still alive, in front of the trucks, below the only ladder leading down from the wall, gnashing their ravenous jaws.


	77. Chapter 77

It's awhile before the dust in the quarry clears enough to see the damage. Carol stands and helps Daryl up, and together the team examines the scene.

Scores of walker bodies lay exploded in the quarry below, and many more are buried beneath the gravel, which moves like a rippling river with the clawing force of the grasping hands beneath it. Dropped, empty gun magazines and spent brass litter the wide stone walls. About seventy walkers lay dead outside the quarry, brought down by the marksmen's bullets. But hundreds still stand, gnashing hungrily at the people above as their decrepit arms reach and claw against the stone walls of the quarry.

"We wasted too much ammo," Rick mutters.

"Let's count off what we have left." Maggie slides the magazine out of her rifle, pops out a single bullet, and then glances at the twenty-round magazine still clipped to her belt. "I have 21 rounds of .223 left."

"I've got a full, twenty-round magazines of 5.56 on my belt." Carol drops her magazine and plucks out the bullets one by one. "And three in the magazine. One in the chamber."

Aaron sighs. "I'm completely empty. I was just…I was trying to save Jesus."

Jesus puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. "And you did. But I lost my rifle down there." He nods at the swarming herd below.

Mason slaps the magazine he's been examining back in his gun. "Between this and the one on my belt…I've got nineteen rounds total. .223."

"I have two fifteen-round magazines," Michonne says. "Also .223."

"I've got eighteen rounds," Rosita sounds off. ".308. "

Daniel nervously raises and lowers his baseball cap over his forehead. "24 rounds of .223."

Daryl taps the quiver that rides his back. "Got a dozen arrows. 'N 'm handgun's got 12 rounds of 9 mm, but that ain't gonna do much good from up here."

Carson reports he has 20 rounds of .223, and Elijah has 15.

"And I've got 18 rounds of 5.56." Rick opens the green metal ammo case they brought up to the wall and shakes it around. The bullets inside clatter. "And it looks like there's about 50 rounds left in there. Mixed caliber."

Maggie's been keeping a running tally in her mind. "We have two hundred and fifty shots total, counting Daryl's arrows. For what must be four hundred walkers."

Mason scratches the gray-blonde stubble on his cheek. "As my pa would have said, this does not  _bode_  well."

"No shit," Rick mutters.

"So what do we do?" Daniel looks at Maggie as though he thinks she might be the leader of the group.

"I think we start by taking a rest and taking some time to figure that out," says Carol, glancing at Daryl, who has just covered his mouth to hack. The dust has not cleared his lungs. "As long as we're here, tempting them…" She points her barrel at the teeming creatures below. "They aren't a threat to Dead End or Hillcrest."

Rick nods wearily, and every member of the trapped team slides down to sit on the wall.

"We should have brought more ammo," Maggie grumbles.

Rick sighs. "We should have  _wasted_  less."

Elijah winces. "Carson and I should have thought the walkers might overtake the robots before they were all the way in."

"Should of, would of, could of," Daniel says. "We did our best. And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for that pesky deer."

Maggie snorts. "Screw you," she says, "for making me laugh in a situation like  _this_."

"Would you rather cry?" Daniel asks.

"I don't cry," Maggie says. "I just get angry."

"They look angry enough for all of us." Daniel picks a small, loose rock from atop the wall and flicks it down on the herd below. The stone hits a walker between the eyes, which growls and thrashes, stumbles back, and then lunges angrily forward again before crumpling to the ground. "Holy shit! I think I killed it with a rock!"

"Way to go, King David," Maggie says wryly.

But then the same walker claws its way back up. It was apparently just tripped.

Mason, who sits on the opposite side of Daryl, fishes in his front pocket, pulls out a cigarette, and puts it between his teeth. He fishes out another and extends it to Daryl, who actually  _reaches_  for it.

"Like hell!" Carol snaps the cigarette from his hand. "You've barely recovered from all that dust you just breathed in! You're still coughing on and off!"

"My apologies, ma'am," Mason says. "I wasn't thinking."

"'M fine!" Daryl insists, and tries to grab the cigarette back, but Carol balls it into her fist.

Mason takes his own cigarette out from between his teeth and slides it back into his front pocket. "If I were you, Daryl," he drawls, "I would heed the heartfelt concern of a good woman."

Daryl releases Carol's hand. She puts the now crumpled cigarette in her own front pocket. "You can smoke it when you get us all out of here."

Daryl snorts. "When  _I_  do? I look like the solution man to ya?"

"Can we reach Dead End on the radio from here?" Rick asks Daniel.

Daniel shakes his head. "You can try, but I think we're out of range."

Rick does try, but he gets no response.

Maggie squints against the sun. "I'm so damn thirsty."

Daniel unzips the backpack he brought and hands her a large reusable bottle full of water.

"Thank you." She takes a few small sips.

He takes the Baltimore Oriels baseball cap off his head and smooths his unruly, dark brown hair before handing it over to her. "That'll keep the sun out of your eyes."

"No, you keep it," she insists.

"I've got sunglasses in my pack."

Maggie relents and takes it, while Daniel put on his shades.

"I'm sure Javier will come looking for me when I don't show up back home," Rosita says. "And he'll see the herd, and turn around, go back to Dead End, and round up a militia to finish it off. We  _did_ manage to kill or trap two-thirds of it. It's nowhere near the threat it once was. I say we take our time, take our aim, pick off as many as we can, and then we just…wait."

"What's our water situation?" Rick asks.

They grab their backpacks and rummage inside. Altogether, if they share, and spread it thin, they have enough water to last twenty-four hours, and enough snacks for about two hundred calories each.

"So are we agreed?" Rosita asks. "Pick off half these fuckers, and then wait for the cavalry?"

"I ain't wastin' my arrows," Daryl says. "I can grab those back if we end up havin' to fight our way out on the ground."

"I say we hold back Daryl's arrows and a hundred rounds of ammo, in case we need it to get out," Maggie says. "But…we could go ahead and pick-off a hundred while we're waiting. Pare down this herd. Then, when Javier and whoever  _does_  get here…it's less of a threat."

"We need to take our time with those shots," Rick reasons. "Not a bullet wasted. So we use only our best marksmen." He unclips the magazine from his belt and hands it to Michonne, who accepts it solemnly.

Elijah gives his rifle to Rosita. "It's a different caliber than yours, but you can have the gun."

Carson hands his magazine to Carol. "You can also use .223 in that rifle of yours, right?"

Carol nods and takes the offered magazine.

Daniel looks at Maggie. "My bullets are yours, when you decide you need them." He smiles. "Hey, it's just like a day at the shooting range at the carnival. Maybe you'll win a prize."

"Our lives?" she asks.

[*]

There's a thump and a whoosh from the top of the wall.

"I thought you weren't going to waste any of your arrows, Pookie," Carol teases.

He points. "See what I did there?"

The arrow has gone straight through the heads of two walkers that were pressed together in the crowded mass below.

She smiles. "Impressive. Kind of hot, actually."

He rolls his eyes, but he smiles and peers at her, as if hoping that she really  _is_  impressed. She rewards him with a light pat on the ass. "Do it again."

"Nah. Not sure I can. 'N 'm not wastin' an arrow." He jerks his chin toward her rifle. "Showed ya mine. Show me yers."

She laughs. "Okay." Carol raises the rifle to her shoulder and tries to find two walkers jammed together. She takes a shot. The bullet goes through the forehead of the first and into the second. Both walkers slump to the ground. "I did it!" she cries with excitement.

Daryl chuckles happily.

[*]

With 100 rounds of ammunition, Daryl's single arrow, and very careful aiming, the marksmen manage to kill 106 walkers.

"I'm the only one who didn't get a twofer," Mason grumbles.

"Should have given your gun to Carol, old man," Carson tells him.

"I  _did_  make  _all_  of my shots."

"You know, we can get to the truck now," Rick reasons. "At least most of us can."

"I can lead them around the other side," Mason suggests, "maybe dangle myself over a bit, get them away from the trucks. Y'all can go down, take off. Come back for me later."

"We have to find the keys I tossed down first," Daniel reminds him. "And they're probably under a walker's body. I'm not sure it's worth the risk. Javier will come for Rosita. And maybe even Dianne will come for you. I say we wait."

" _Maybe_  even?" Mason asks.

Daniel shrugs. "Let's face it. You're not nearly as hot a prize as Rosita."

"Enid might come for me," Elijah says. "But I hope not. God, I hope she stays at home."

Carson glowers. "Well I  _know_  Elizabeth's not coming for me. And if I end up dead, she'll probably just go for Dante."

"I thought Dante was with Garret's oldest girl," Daniel says. "Carolyn?"

"Carolyn's with that field hand now," Carson tells him. "Bruno."

"Does Garret know that?" Mason asks sharply. "Bruno must be over thirty!"

"He's exactly thirty. Welcome to the world of scarcity, Dad."

"I don't understand these kids just settling for whoever's around," Maggie says. She laughs to herself. "Well, I guess that's kind of what I was doing with Glenn at first, it being the end of the world and him being the  _only_  single man around."

"I's around," Daryl says. "T-Dog. Shane." At the mention of that long-buried name, Rick tenses. "Dale," Daryl adds hastily.

"Glenn was the only single guy near my age," Maggie clarifies.

"So you settled for your husband?" Daniel asks skeptically.

"At  _first_ ," Maggie says. "At first I was just having fun, but that's not how it ended up. Glenn was the love of my life." Her jaw quivers and she looks down at the herd below.

Carol puts an arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze, while Daniel winces sympathetically - or maybe from the pain of his own memories - and walks down the wall a ways. He sits down beside his pack, fishes out a deck of cards, and shakes it. "Rummy 500 anyone?"

[*]

Dianne looks up at the watch stand where Jerry stands, his big bulk blocking the glow of the sun that is shifting toward evening. "No sign of them yet?" she asks.

He turns and shakes his head solemnly.

"Let me have the radio." She climbs up to the platform and takes the radio from him.

"If they're at that quarry, they're way too far out of range," Jerry says.

She tries Rick's frequency anyway, and gets nothing. Then she tries Dead End. Javier answers, and in the background she can hear the sound of a truck door slamming.

"Have you heard from Rosita?" she asks.

"No," Javier replies. An engine whirs to life. "I'm going to look for her now."

"Wait for me," Dianne tells him. "I'm coming, too. Meet me on the highway just outside of Dead End."

"Fine," Javier replies. "But get here  _quick_. I won't wait long for you."

When Dianne hands the radio back to Jerry, she spies Enid standing on the earth below. "I'm coming, too," the teenager insists.

"Nabila needs help with the kids," Dianne says sternly.

Jerry grins. "I can help with the kids! I love kids."

Dianne's voice is low. "This isn't a safe mission."

"And I'm not a child!" Enid snaps. "Did you know I was completely on my own before I found Alexandria? For weeks. And I survived. And I was on my own after the Hilltop collapsed, too, and I sur – "

"- Because Elijah found you," Dianne interrupts.

Enid swallows. " _Exactly_. Because Elijah found me. I owe him my  _life_. And he's out there, too, likely in trouble somewhere."

" _Dude_ ," Jerry tells Dianne, "you  _can't_  say no to that."

"She doesn't have the authority to say no, anyway." Enid turns and heads for the stairs of the porch. "I'll be back with my gun and my pack in two minutes."

In five minutes, Dianne and Enid are in one of the trucks, rumbling down the dirt road, pausing only long enough to let Morgan open the lower gate.


	78. Chapter 78

"Knock on five," Daniel says and lays down his cards.

"Unfortunately for you," Maggie tells him, "I only have four points in my hand."

"You're good at cards,  _too_?" he asks. "Is there anything you suck at?"

"I can't carry a tune," she replies. "And it's weird, too, because my sister Beth was a beautiful singer."

"I've got nineteen," Elijah grumbles and slaps his cards down on the wall.

"Twenty-five," Carson says.

Points are tallied and the cards reshuffled and re-dealt. They're sitting in a square around the draw pile – Daniel's back to the walkers in the quarry – few of which remain alive - Maggie's back to the walkers on the outside wall – and Elijah and Carson to the sides.

A little farther down the wall from them, to the right, Daryl and Carol sit shoulder to shoulder, facing the herd outside the quarry, and the rocky hill beyond it, which rises almost strait to a plateau where wild grass stretches a few yards before its swallowed by the forest. The setting sun is casting smoky yellow-orange rays through the full, green trees. Carol bumps Daryl's shoulder with her own, "Romantic, huh?"

"Sure. 'Cept for the stench comin' up from down there. 'N all the noise."

"After awhile it just sounds like a fan."

"An  _angry_  fan," he says. He looks down. "Bet ya cold kill one of 'em with one of yer throwin' knives."

"Yeah, but I might need those to get out."

"Hell, how many ya got on ya?"

"Four of the throwing ones, and my regular hunting knife."

"'S one less knife? Go for it. Ain't got nothin' better to do."

"Yeah, and what do I get if I hit one from here?" she teases. "What's my prize?"

"Give ya a kiss. Even give ya a little tongue."

Carol snorts. "Really? Right here, in front of all these people?"

"Think they already know I like ya."

Now she laughs. "You're just not usually much for public displays of affection." She unclips a throwing knife from her belt and draws herself into a standing position. She walks to the right to survey her potential targets, and pauses where Rosita is standing and sharpening her knife with a stone. Then she walks past Rosita to where Mason is standing and slowly smoking a cigarette while he watches the shifting gravel in the quarry below, as though dully mesmerized by the pattern the rocks make as the walkers writhe beneath them. His eyelids droop a little, and he says, "Howdy, Carol. Going for an evening stroll?"

She smiles. "Something like that."

She walks down the wall a little farther, to the edge of the herd, to where Aaron and Jesus are playing tic-tac-toe in the dust on the wall.

"Damn it!" Aaron mutters as Jesus puts an O in a square and draws a line across his three Os diagonally to show he won. "I didn't see that for some reason."

Then Carol walks slowly back until she's near Daryl again and settles on a target. With one eye closed, she aims. With a flick of her wrist, the knife sails down, flipping over three times, and then landing, point first, straight into the head of a walker.

"Damn," Daryl mutters. "Didn't actually expect ya to hit it from up here."

"And now you're going to have to pay up."

She sits down next to him again and wiggles her eyebrow.

He smiles a little bashfully, but leans over and kisses her, slowly at first, and then more passionately, before driving his tongue into her mouth.

[*]

Javier is sitting on the lowered tailgate of his pickup on the shoulder of the highway, glancing anxiously at his watch, when Dianne slows her truck to a stop behind it. She turns off the engine and she and Enid slide out. The gravel crunches as they walk toward him.

"What the hell did you bring the niñita for?" he barks.

"I am  _not_  a little girl," Enid says with an angry bob of her head. "I can shoot. And my boyfriend is out there."

Javier rolls his eyes. "Fine. But don't think I'm going to protect you if the shit hits the fan. My mind's going to be on Rosita." He slides from the tailgate and slams it up. "We take my truck. I drive." He eyes Dianne's bow and quiver. "I hope you brought more than a bow and arrows."

"My rifle is in the truck, along with three full magazines of ammo. I'll go get them."

Javier runs a hand over his mouth. "Sorry if I'm uptight. I'm just…I'm worried about Rosita."

"We're  _all_  worried about our people," Dianne assures him and turns to get her things from the truck.

"I call shotgun." Enid raises her rifle to indicate she'll cover from the window if need be, and jogs toward the passenger's side of Enid's truck.

Javier shakes his head but follows.

[*]

"Get a room!" Rick shouts from down the wall, at the far left, where he and Michonne are sitting together.

Daryl pulls his lips away from Carol's. "Ain't like y'all ain't been doin' it down there!" he shouts back.

In the card-playing square of four, Maggie discards a six of hearts. "I miss making out. Maybe even more than I miss sex."

"That makes no sense at all," Carson says. "Sex  _has_  to be way better than making it out."

"It is," Elijah tells him with a grin.

Carson gives him a thumbs up. "You dog, you! I didn't know you and En – "

"- I didn't say that!" Elijah interrupts anxiously. "I didn't…I'm not boasting or anything."

Carson laughs. "I can't get past third base with Elizabeth. She says not until we're married."

Daniel looks across the discard pile at Maggie. "It's a little awkward being a part of this conversation."

She chuckles. "Sorry I started it."

"I have to agree with you, though," Daniel says. "I miss the sex, of course, but…it's the  _everyday_  stuff that leaves the bigger void, you know?"

Maggie nods. "Yeah. I know."

"Sex  _is_  going to be every day stuff when I get married," Carson says.

Daniel laughs. "Good luck with that, kid."

Elijah lays down a set. "And I'm out."

Daniel looks over Maggie's shoulder. "Oh shit."

She turns and looks down at the walkers outside the quarry. "What?"

"Three more just joined the herd. I don't know where they came from."

"From around this left side," Jesus calls. "After coming down the dirt road. They must have come from the woods across the highway, following the noise."

Mason meanders over closer to the card players and flicks the butt of his cigarette into the quarry below. "Well, one advantage of this migrating herd is that it's probably drawn out every living walker in Loudon county that's more than fifteen miles south of Dead End. If we get out alive, we won't have many walkers left in these here parts."

" _If_  we get out alive," Carson repeats gloomily.

[*]

Dianne grips the spotlight bar as Javier slows the truck to a stop. She's been standing in the bed as he drives, binoculars on the horizon. Javier slips out, but he leaves the truck running. "The herd  _was_  about three-quarters a mile up here, according to the map Rosita left me. Is it still there?"

Dianne lowers her binoculars. "No. They must have managed to lead it away. But what happened from there…." She shakes her head.

"We drive on toward the quarry again. As soon as you see any sign of it, pound the window and I'll stop."

They're two miles away from the quarry when Dianne knocks on the window of the cab and Javier jerks the truck to a stop. She stumbles back a few steps and falls on her ass. "Thanks, asshole," she says when he slides out. She pulls herself up. "You couldn't have stopped a little more gently?"

"I thought you were holding on. You see the herd?"

"No. But if our people are at that quarry, they should be well within range of the radio now. Shouldn't we try reaching them?"

[*]

"Deal me in," Rosita says as she slides down next to Elijah. "I'm getting bored."

Daniel lays a card in front of her and continues to deal around the square, which now also has Mason sitting next to Carson. As Daniel picks up his hand, he stares over Maggie's shoulder again and points.

Maggie cranes her neck back.

Daryl, who is still sitting next to Carol farther down the wall, also follows Daniel's finger. He nods at the two walkers emerging from the tree line on top of the plateau.

"The sound of the herd must be drawing them for at least a mile," Carol says.

The walkers just keep walking across the plateau toward the herd, right toward the edge of the cliff, and straight off it. They plummet down about forty feet and land on top of the second truck – one in the bed and one on the roof. Bones snap. The walker on the hood begins to drag itself by its arms down the front windshield of the truck and across the hood, its freshly broken legs bent behind it.

"Resilient fuckers," Daryl mutters. "Give 'em that."

Rick paces over past them, saying, "I've got Javier on the radio."

The card players stand up and everyone gathers around anxiously to listen in as Rick explains their situation to Javier.

Rosita takes the radio from him. "Hey," she tells Javier. "It's me."

"Gracias a Dios," he murmurrs, but then. "Why didn't you bring more ammo? We have plenty!"

"Because I'm only  _allowed_  to sign out so much! And I thought Hillcrest would bring more. And they did bring a lot. But…we got a little excited when the herd broke loose. Jesus was in danger and…well, we probably wasted two hundred rounds, just hitting limbs and chests."

"So they're not at the entrance?" Javier asks. "They're on the far side? About three hundred now?"

"Yes," Rosita replies. "But they're drawing more. We might have as many as three hundred and fifty by morning. If you can manage to find a back way to the plateau above the quarry, you can shoot from there. They won't be able to climb up that straight cliff after you. They'll be sitting ducks. But be careful. There are at least some walkers in those woods. We've seen two come out already."

The radio goes silent for a moment, and then Javier comes back on. "It might take us a while to find a back way around to that spot, and I want to recruit more shooters from Dead End, just in case. And we need to get some more ammo. We also want to shoot by daylight. How are you for wáter? Can you make it until the morning?"

Rick nods, and Rosita tells him they can. "And we  _do_  still have a hundred rounds we held back, just in case."

"Then hang in there, hermosa. We'll end this herd tomorrow."

There's a murmur in the background. "Dianne wants to talk to Mason."

Rosita hands over the radio to him.

"Just wanted to hear your voice," Dianne says. "Know you're alive."

"You can't get rid of me that easily."

"I love you, you know," Dianne says.

"I  _suspected_. Wouldn't say I  _knew_ , but…count on a life and death situation to reveal the truth. I love you, too, darlin'." He hands the radio to Elijah next, so he can talk to Enid.

"You know that question you asked me a while ago?" Enid asks. "Well….I've decided the answer's yes."

"Yeah?" Elijah asks skeptically. "Well, if it's  _still_  yes when we get off this wall…we'll talk about it, okay?"

"Okay."

The radio is returned to Rick, who clips it to his belt and sighs. "So the waiting resumes."

"Yeah, but at least now we know they'll be an end to it," Daniel says.

"I  _already_  knew," Rosita tells him. "I knew Javier would come for me."


	79. Chapter 79

Rick keeps a watchful eye on Michonne, who's exhausted these days because of waking to feed the baby. She sleeps stretched out on the uncomfortable wall, her head on her pack in his lap, and he holds her in place with and arm, to make sure she doesn't roll off the wall in her sleep – though it's a long way to roll on either side. He's grateful Nabila is still occasionally nursing Gracie, so she can feed their infant son, and he wishes Michonne hadn't come, but he also knows her determination to fight for her family is one of the things he loves about her.

Farther down the wall, Jesus stands guard over a sleeping Aaron, who got little sleep last night because of watch duty, but no one else has been able to doze off.

Maggie, Daniel, Mason, Rosita, Carson, and Elijah are still sitting in a square – or more like a trapezoid now - and playing cards, with only the light of two flashlight lanterns standing straight up on the wall, casting a glow over the discard pile.

Several yards from them, Carol, sits with her head leaned against Daryl's shoulder, and he wraps her arm around her. Rick smiles to see them like that – so comfortable, so naturally  _together_. He thinks of how they started, in that Atlanta camp in a quite different kind of quarry, and how they've ended up. So many losses….and yet so many gains. He brushes one of Michonne's deadlocks back from her face, and looks up at the night stars. He remembers Grandma Grime reading to him from a children's Bible about God telling Abraham to look up at the stars, and number them.  _And so shall your descendants be._

[*]

The pick-up crunches to a stop at the entrance to the woods, and the engine dies, while the soft glow of the headlights continue to bathe the trees in an eerie yellow haze. The passenger side door creeks open as Enid slides out. Javier jumps down form the driver's side. From the backseat, Colton Weatherford spills out, slides on his hiking pack, and picks up his rifle. He's followed by one of the field hands, Mateo, and, on the other side, Dianne. Jerry lumbers down from the bed of the truck, and they all gather their weapons, ammos and supplies.

Dianne spreads the map out on the tail of the truck and checks it again, running her finger along the narrow hiking trail.

"There's really no way we can get a truck in there?" Jerry asks.

"No," Colton says. "Hiked that trail plenty as a boy. It's all on foot from here on out. Should take three hours or so to make it all the way to the plateau." He looks over the big man. "Maybe four with you, no offense."

"I walk faster than you think," Jerry tells him.

"Let's move out," Enid insists, switching on her flashlight and leading the way toward the tree line, her .22 rifle swinging from her left shoulder.

Dianne catches Jerry's eye, and he quickly catches up with her, a rifle on his left shoulder and a spear in his right hand, ready to stab any walkers or other threats that may lurk in the woods.

Javier follows, clutching an AR-15, boxes of ammo rattling in his hiking pack, with Mateo, who holds a second flashlight, beside him.

Colton and Dianne take up the rear. "How's your son?" she asks as they vanish into the woods.

"Broke that arm pretty damn good," Colton says, "but I figure that's a sign he's a healthy, active boy. It's all set now."

An owl hoots somewhere from above, causing the team to duck instinctively. Jerry laughs, and they press on.

[*]

"Look at all those stars," Carol murmurs, a hand on Daryl's knee and her head on his shoulder.

"Mhmmm…." Daryl points up and connects the dots. "Can see  _ **Sagittarius.**_  The  _ **Archer."**_

"Where?"

He shows her again.

"Oh yeah."

He sweeps his finger as if painting the night sky. "And that's Aquila. And over there's Ophiuchus."

"Wow. You really know your constellations. Did you want to be an astronomer when you were a little boy?"

"Nah. Just wanted to find my way home when I got lost in the woods."

"Well, I'm impressed."

"That's the Northern Cross." He sweeps his finger toward the night sky. "'N Cassiopeia." She tries to follow where he's pointing, but it's just a sea of brilliant dots to her. "'N that's the Big Dipper." She strains to make it out. "The Little Dipper. 'N the Southern Boot. The Grand Fork. 'N that's Cyclops's left shoe."

Carol splurts out laughing. "You're making it all up!"

He bites down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing, but she can see the grin breaking through, twisting his lip on both edges.

She smacks him playfully on the shoulder. "None of it was true, was it?"

"Well, that really  _is_  the Archer."

She settles her head against his shoulder again before looking out at the expansive night sky. She wonders if it was always this clear in Virginia hill country, or if it's the loss of life and pollution that made such stark beauty possible again – beauty rising over the teeming filth of the undead below.

Daryl's nose nuzzles her silver hair, and he says, low and gravely in her ear, "Like ya bein' my wife."

She smiles. "I like it, too."

[*]

Carol doesn't remember dozing off, but she awakes to the flickering rays of the rising sun, her head in Daryl's lap, and a resonant male voice gently singing –

_I see my light come shining_ _  
From the west unto the east  
Any day now, any day now  
I shall be released_

She rises and turns to see it's Daniel, sitting facing the plateau, with his hands stretched out on the wall behind himself, and Maggie sitting next to him, scouring the tree line with binoculars.

"See anyone?" Rick asks as he paces behind Maggie.

"Not yet."

Carol rubs the sleep dust from her eyes and glances at Daryl. "Were you up all night?"

"Mhmhm."

He looks it, too, with drooped eyelids. She stands, and he stands with her, and they each have two ounces of water, emptying their shared canteen.

Everyone is gathering themselves to their feet now, stretching and surveying the scene on both sides.

"That's a lot more walkers than there were last night," Michonne says.

"The sound's been drawing them all night," Rosita replies. "From across the highway and around the dirt road."

"How many now?" Jesus asks.

"Looks like about 375," Mason says. "I always was good at guessing the jelly beans in the jar at the fair."

Carol checks her gun and makes sure its properly loaded. Her head jerks toward Rick when she hears the radio crackle.

Rick hastily removes it from his hip. "Come in!"

"Buenos dias amigos," comes Javier's voice. "It looks like you've drawn more company."

Rosita grabs the walkie from Rick. "Where are you?" she asks.

"Look at the plateau."

They all do, as Javier emerges from the tree line, walks almost to the edge of the plataue, and waves across at the people on the quarry wall.

"Run into any walkers up there?" Rosita asks. As she does, Colton Weatherford can be seen sauntering out of the woods to stand beside Javier, followed by Jerry, Dianne, Enid, and Mateo.

"Just two," Javier answers. "Hikers, probably. This plateau isn't accessible by road. We had to hike hours to get here."

"And that's everyone you could recruit?"

"Don't worry, hermosa, we brought six hundred rounds of ammo, just in case. Dianne has two dozen arrows."

"It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel," Colton says beside him.

"Well then get to work," Rosita tells him.

They do, and their shots draw the walkers from the quarry walls toward the plateau. The team stands in a row across the edge of the plateau and pop off the walkers one by one in a row, taking turns down the line, and then going back again. They miss a few shots, but after 350 rounds and a couple dozen arrows, only about two dozen walkers remain.

"Stop!" Carol yells, holding up a hand between shots. "Just cover us on the way down, now. We'll knife the rest of them, save some rounds."

The team shimmy down the ladder one by one, the shooters on the plateu picking off any walker that gets too close to the ladder, and the team finishes off the remaining walkers by hand. As Daryl recovers his own arrows and Dianne's, Rick and Michonne begin to roll around walker bodies in search of the dropped keys to the truck. Maggie makes her slow way, last, down the ladder, and Daniel helps her down to the ground, steadying her when she stumbles on her prosthetic.

From the plateau, the shooters throw down bottles of water, which the team downs gratefully.

"See you in a few hours," Javier tells Rosita through the walkie. "It's going to take us a while to hike back to the truck. And then I'm going to bed. We only got two hours sleep last night."

"I didn't get any," she replies. "See you at home."

The keys now recovered, the quarry team piles into the cab and bed of the one functioning truck, and Michonne drives, because she got the most sleep.

The sweaty, tired, mess of bodies rattle in the bed of the pick-up as it bumps over the dirt road – and walker's bodies – toward the highway.

Daryl slumps to the side, his head on Carol's shoulder, and closes his eyes.

"Well," Mason muses, looking across the bed of the truck at Carol. "I reckon we've just about eliminated every last walker in Loudon County. Later tonight, we should crack open the champagne I smuggled out of Dead End."


	80. Chapter 80

The group drops Rosita and Daniel at the stop sign to Dead End on their way home to Hillcrest. Daniel hops down from the bed, nods to Maggie, and says, "I'll see you around, I guess."

"Maybe," she tells him. "If you ever let anyone past your stop sign."

"I have feeling some things are going to change when the new Council is elected," he replies. He smiles and heads toward the gate, where two armed men have already gathered and are peering suspiciously through the bars at the truck, but when they see Daniel and Rosita, they relax their weapons and open the gate.

Rosita goes straight to her room to nap. She wakes up three hours later, hoping to find Javier beside her in bed, but he's still not home. He's out there, with Jerry and Dianne and Colton and Mateo, hiking his slow way through the woods and back to the road where they left the trucks. She hopes they don't run into anymore walkers in their exhausted state.

To distract herself from her worry, she goes to help Garrett work on the vehicles. She's under a tractor when Colton's wife Blossom pokes her head into the garage. "The men are back!"

Rosita leaves Garrett alone with the work, washes up in the outdoor sink, and hastens back to her suite, where she finds Javier sitting warily on the bed and yanking off his boots.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey yourself."

She leans back against the desk chair as he stands and yanks his shirt off over his head. "I'm not exactly the damsel in distress type. but I have to admit…you coming to my rescue…it was kind of sexy."

He grins. "Yeah? Want to show me your gratitude, hermosa?"

Rosita rolls her eyes, but she prowls toward him and seizes him by the belt buckle. "Maybe."

[*]

Daryl doesn't remember walking up the stairs, but he wakes up in his own soft, warm bed with the afternoon sunlight piercing the slats between the venetian blinds and filtering through the drawn lace curtain.

_Home._

"Hey, sleepy head," comes Carol's soft voice. He blinks her into view. She's sitting in the rocking chair near the fireplace and sewing. "You want some late lunch, or do you just want to wait the two hours until dinner?"

He drags himself into a sitting position and rubs the sleep dust from his eyes. "'S already two hours 'til dinner?"

"You slept hard. I only napped an hour and a half, but I did get some sleep last night, unlike you." She lays her sewing aside on the circular stand by the chair. "I'm going to go start smoking some venison. Preference for vegetables?"

"Mac n' cheese?"

She laughs. "That's not a vegetable."

"Fine. Fried okra then."

"I'll see what I can do." Carol comes over to the bed and leans down and kisses him.

"Them hikers make it back?" he asks.

"Dianne and Jerry got in an hour ago. Javier and Mateo are back at Dead End."

"C'mere…" He drags her down into the bed atop him and kisses her. "Ain't got to cook just yet…"

"Well, we'll end up eating later."

"People can wait. Won't kill 'em." He rolls her onto her back and begins nibbling her neck, which makes her squirm. Then he slides a hand under her shirt and cups her breast through her bra.

"I suppose some others are napping anyway…no need to hurry…" She kisses his ear and whispers, "Take your time."

[*]

Dianne wakes up feeling a bit groggy. She only managed to sleep two hours last night while they waited for sunrise, and an hour and a half this afternoon. Mason is still asleep beside her, naked, because they made love when she got back. He snorts awake when she snuggles up, drapes an arm around her, and says, "You up already, darlin'?"

"I can't sleep. I'll just go to bed early tonight. After dinner."

They kiss lazily, yawning between smacks, and gradually grow more awake. Dianne props her head up on one elbow and looks down at him. "So when are you going to make an honest woman out of me?"

"Say what now?"

She shrugs. "Well, it's just….we're living together. We've exchanged I love you's."

"Are you talking about  _marriage_?"

"It's the logical next step, isn't it?"

He rolls on his side facing her and props himself up. "I thought you never wanted to get married again. On account of your asshole husband."

"Well, you're not going to be an asshole husband, are you?"

"No. Not overall. On occasion, perhaps."

She laughs. "So?"

"You'd want to marry me?"

"You don't like the idea?"

He rests a hand on her bare hip. "Oh, no, I very much like the idea. Especially since Dead End is probably going to open itself up in time, when it has a new Council. And you'll go over there, and you'll see all the young, single handsome men…I very much like the idea of…" He yanks her against myself, "locking this up before you do."

"Oh, well, maybe we should wait six months then."

He kisses her bare shoulder. "Too late. You already proposed. And my answer is yes."

"I didn't  _propose_ ," she insists.

"Okay, well, then, I will. Dianne, mistress of the hunt, joy of my declining years, light of my dark apocalypse, will you marry me?"

She chuckles and pulls back from his embrace. "I'll think about it."

"What does marriage entail here, exactly, anyway?"

"Well, we put our names in the book. We have a little ceremony with witnesses. And it's official. And then, if you ever leave me…" She reaches over him and plucks his cowboy hat off the nightstand and sets it on her head. "I get the hat."

[*]

Rosita has to wake Javier up for dinner. Because the weather is fair, everyone is eating together in the reception tents outside the big house. Rosita and Daniel are bout asked to re-tell their stories of being trapped by the herd at least a dozen times –

_"Were you scared?"_

_"Did you sleep at all? Weren't you afraid of falling off the wall?"_

_"How did you seal off the quarry?"_

_"Wait, Rosita knows how to make bombs? Where did you learn?"_

_"What did you do all night?"_

_"How much did they stink?"_

And Javier and Mateo are asked to recount their rescue mission –

_"Did you have to hike all night?"_

_"How many did you kill?"_

And so on….

There's excitement in the air, mingled with the smell of smoked pig. When the camp is on dessert – apple pie – the portable microphone comes out and Dolly Weathered announces that they'll be accepting nominations for the Council, with elections to be held in five days, after everyone has had a chance to think about their choices.

Javier is nominated, and his nomination seconded, by two eager women. A little too eager, Rosita thinks –  _giggling_  women. But she's glad he's finally getting his due, and she feels certain he'll be one of the two to win the election, until he stands and announces, "I decline the nomination. I'm honored, but I decline. I feel I have enough responsibilities as farm manager, and I'd like to continue to dedicate myself to that role."

There's a murmur of disbelief from beneath the tents, and an outright, "What the fuck?" from Rosita when he sits down.

He bends his head and whispers to her, "I'm glad you believe in me. I  _am_. I'm glad you think I deserve this and that I'd be good at it. But  _you_  wanted this, hermosa. You never really asked if  _I_  wanted it. I'm a manager, not a politician. I'd rather run a business than a camp."

Rosita blinks and shakes her head. "I…"

At another table, one of the field hands stands and asks for the microphone. Dolly hands it to him. He nominates Mateo. "We need input from the field hands on this Council, and Mateo also risked his life to rescue the trapped."

Mateo's nomination is seconded, and then Daniel is nominated. "He's been an excellent construction foreman," the woman nominating him says. "We owe our defenses and our grist mill to him, and he risked his life to participate in the great walker purge."

"The Great Walker Purge," Javier whispers to Rosita. "It's got a name already."

Rosita doesn't reply. She's still reeling from his rejection of his nomination. Another field hand seizes the microphone. "I'd like to nominate Rosita Espinosa for a position on the Council," he says. "If it weren't for her, that herd might be at our gates tomorrow. She can fix cars, make bombs, and she's a great shot. She's been out there, against the dangers in this world, more than any of us have. We need her input."

A few of the other field hands give a hearty "Here! Here!" and one stands to second the nomination.

Rosita's mouth opens slightly in surprise. She expected Javier to be nominated, but it never occurred to her that anyone would nominate  _her_ , an immigrant to Dead End. Javier smiles. "Go on," he whispers.

Rosita swallows. She takes a breath and then announces, "I accept the nomination."

By the time the nominations are done, two more field hands - a man and a woman - have been nominated. There are now five people on the ballot for the two open slots on the Council - the one Amos Weatherford vacated, and the one from which Garret Weatherford will soon step down.

Javier smirks. "You better start kissing babies, hermosa."


	81. Chapter 81

The first breezes of autumn cool the once-thick summer air, and the wrap-around porch of the great inn at Hillcrest serves as a stage for two weddings. Carson plays best man at both – once to his father Mason, and once to his closet friend Elijah. By the end of the back-to-back weddings, the porch is adorned with wild daisies Judith has scattered with abandon on the planks.

"Enid's young," Carol tells Daryl that night as they stand on the back porch watching the sunset and the stars rise. "But it's probably for the best. They're already having sex. And he's a good boy."

"Ain't a boy," Daryl corrects her. "'S a man. Ain't no boys over fourteen no more."

"So you're telling me Henry's going to be a man in two years?"

He wraps his arms around her from behind and pulls her back against his chest. "Ain't like he's gonna move away from home. But…yeah. Best get use to the idea."

"Well, when he grows up…I can still mother Gracie. And play the cool aunt to H.G. and Little D and Judith."

"'N the new one comin'. Zeke 'n 'Bila's."

Carol rests a hands on the arms that are wrapped around her and looks out at the greening crops and the fall wildflowers that bloom boldly over the Virginia hills – life unconquerable.

[*]

Carol breathes in the scent of Daryl's black leather jacket and savors the feel of the wind teasing the top of her silver hair as they turn on the dirt road that leads to Dead End. In front of them, Rick drives the truck straight past the stop sign. No tires burst, and no guns come out. Maggie rolls down the passenger window to talk to the guards who have rolled the gates wide open, while Ezekiel nods regally to them from the bed of the pick-up.

For the first time, the Hillcrest Council enters the Dead End camp, and they take in the flourishing scene with awe. "'N I thought we done good," Daryl whispers to Carol as they are led up the path that leads to the front stairs of the great house.

"We have," she whispers back, "Given where we started."

They're seated at the dining room table across from Dead End's recently elected Council. "Good day, Councilwoman," Daniel says with a smile to Maggie as he pulls out the chair across from her and sits down.

She chuckles and replies, "Gooday, Councilman. And congratulations on your election."

Rosita sits across from Rick, Colton – with a dimpled smile – from Carol, Dolly across from Rick, and Mateo, one of the supervising field hands, takes the seat opposite Ezekiel. Henrietta Weatherford, like her brother Garrett, decided to step down before the election, and now only two Weatherfords remain on the Council.

There are no lawyers in this world, but the Councils draw up paperwork anyway – a treaty for the common defense, and a trade agreement.

One by one, they sign.

[*]

The deer population, with so few people to cull it, has greatly expanded, and the animals begin to encroach on the crops. It's a nuisance, but it makes for easy hunting, and the smokehouse is soon packed with venison. The crops are fenced in, and they flourish.

When the fall harvest rolls around, and the work is mostly done, Dead End invites all of Hillcrest for a fall festival. Nabila stays behind, feeling tired from her pregnancy, and offers to keep H.G. and Little D with her, to give their parents a little freedom for the revelry. Ezekiel, Aaron, and Jesus also volunteer to keep watch, but the rest of the camp – many for the first time – roll through the gates of Dead End.

The wine flows freely, and there's music and dancing and games. Judith finds herself immediately swept up by a gaggle of children. In the courtyard where the live music plays, Carol talks a reluctant Daryl into dancing with her, but after a while, feeling embarrassed, he pulls away, hovers to the side, and watches her dance alone in the grassy field instead. Colton, who has left his fiddle, sweeps her up into a dance and calls to Daryl, "You snooze, you lose!" h,,

Eventually, Colton's wife cuts in, and Daryl and Carol settle down at one of the tables beneath the reception tent to talk to Dolly and Tara. The two women leave them alone and head for the dance floor themselves.

"That's a bit of a May-September romance," Carol says.

"What?" Daryl asks.

"Tara and Dolly."

Daryl looks confused, glances to the couple dancing, and says, "Ohhhhh. 'S that why Dolly keeps comin' to Hillcrest to check on Nabila even though she ain't due for months?"

Carol laughs and raises her wine to her lips.

Meanwhile, Daniel approaches Maggie at a nearby table and says, "Hello, Councilwoman."

She chuckles and replies, "Hello, Coucnilman."

He runs a hand through his thick hair. "Would you uh…you want to dance with me, maybe?"

Maggie looks down at her prosthetic fook.

Daniel flushes. "Oh, yeah, I'm an idiot."

Maggie smiles. "I wouldn't mind sitting and listening to the music with you though, and maybe having a little of that wine slush punch?"

"I'm on it," Daniel tells her, and immediately disappears to the serving table.

Beyond the tents, Enid leans against the stone wall and watches Elijah dance with a young woman who forcefully snatched him up. Carson settles beside her and hands her a glass of punch.

"Who's that?" she asks him after she sips.

"Garrett's eldest daughter. Carolyn. "

"She's safe, right?" Enid asks. Enid's glad she's locked up Elijah, because all of the teenage girls of Dead End – whether they have boyfriends or husbands or not – have been whispering over the handsome young man.

" _Safe_?" Carson asks. "Well, let's just say she gets around. And she's a bit of a homewrecker. Not that she'll wreck  _your_  home, because, you know…Elijah's a good guy."

Enid's eyebrow shoots up. "What do you mean?"

"Well…she  _was_  with Dante. " He nods to the young black man dancing with Carson's girlfriend Elizabeth. "But then she jilted him for another field hand. Then she jilted  _that_  man to have an affair with Javier's niece's husband Santiago. When Martina found out, she kicked Santiago's ass to the curb."

"Holy…! What did Javier do?" Enid glances at the man playing guitar with the other musicians.

"He just punched Santiago  _once_  and then walked away."

"Hmmm…" Enid eyes Carolyn suspiciously over her punch cup.

"You don't have to worry about Elijah. He's head over heels for you. Must be nice."

"Things not going well with Elizabeth?" Enid asks.

"We broke up. She said she's not  _that_  into me. That she said yes to my proposal because I was…you know, she thought I was all there as. But she doesn't really want to marry me and get trapped with me forever."

" _Cold_." Enid eyes him with concern. "How are you?"

He shrugs. "I was angry at first. Embarrassed. Hurt, I guess. But…truth is, I didn't really love her, not the way you and Elijah love each other, anyway. And she knew it. And, hey…" He smiles. "Now Martina's divorced."

"Do you really want to be the consolation prize? I mean, didn't she already dump you once?"

"Yeah, but…now she's probably got some perspective. And I'm planning to run for Council in two years when it turns over. If I get elected, I bet that will impress her."

Enid shakes her head. "Well, I hope you don't get your heart broken this time. And watch out for Javier."

"Oh, he's not as scary as he looks. And he likes me a hell of a lot better than he likes Santiago."

Elijah finally breaks loose from Carolyn and joins their huddle, looking a little overwhelmed. Enid slips her hand into her husband's back pocket and throws a "hands-off" glance at Carolyn.

Carol, who is watching all this from her table, chuckles, and Daryl asks, "Hell's so funny?"

"Nothing." She slides a hand under the table, sets it on his knee, and squeezes. "I'm just happy."

He grins. "Yeah? 'S been a good harvest, ain't it?"

"It  _has_  been a good harvest. All the crops have yielded, here and back at Hillcrest. More than I ever imagined they would."

She looks over at Rick and Michonne dancing cheek to cheek…at Dolly and Tara taking a turn on the grassy floor…at Enid and Elijah talking with Carson…at Mason playing a rolled-out piano while Dianne sits beside him on the bench….at Javier strumming the guitar while Rosita rubs his shoulders from behind…at Maggie and Daniel laughing at the next table…and then at Jerry, who is giving piggy back rides to two kids while two more latch themselves to each of his legs. "But poor Jerry…Is there ever going to be anyone for him?"

Daryl nods toward Morgan, who is showing off his forms with the staff to one of the Dead End field hands. "How come ya ain't never worried 'bout Morgan gettin' laid?"

"Morgan's content to be a lone wolf. But Jerry…" She pouts. "Poor guy."

Daryl shrugs. "Nah. Got 'imself a girl."

"What?"

"Bridget?" He scratches his goatee. "Brittany? Bri maybe? Soemthin' like that. Kind of plump. But ain't bad to look at it."

"Back up," Carol demands. "Who?  _What_? Where?"

"Ya know, me and Jerry and Aaron and Jesus, we went down to trade with Oceanside few weeks ago."

"Yeah….and?"

"Well, Jerry got 'imself a girl. Reckon he'll bring 'er back home with 'em next time we go to trade. If the Council says okay."

Carol shakes her head. "And you didn't think to mention this?"

"Didn't know I was expected to."

She leans in, gives his cheek a peck, and then rests her head on his shoulder. "You know, there's still a  _lot_  you have to learn about women and marriage."

"Yeah?" He kisses the top of her head. "Good thing we got years n' years left together so's you can teach me…M'girl."

**THE END**


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